


HD Magic Eight Ball: The Sequel!

by tigersilver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Children's Toys, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Living with your in-laws, M/M, Oddly Sentient, Plotting, Your Slytherin in-laws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: For enchanted_jae , for her birthday! The Ball Returns!In bits-and-pieces, sorry!There may or may not be Plot in this one. Or possibly just Plotting. Fair warning.





	1. Balls to the wall, Malfoy!

The 20 standard answers on a Magic 8-Ball are:

● As I see it, yes

● It is certain

● It is decidedly so

● Most likely

● Outlook good

● Signs point to yes

● Without a doubt

● Yes

● Yes - definitely

● You may rely on it

● Reply hazy, try again

● Ask again later

● Better not tell you now

● Cannot predict now

● Concentrate and ask again

● Don't count on it

● My reply is no

● My sources say no

● Outlook not so good

● Very doubtful

10 of the possible answers are affirmative (●), 5 are negative (●), and 5 are maybe (●). Using the Coupon collector's problem in probability theory, it can be shown that it takes an average of 72 questions of the Magic Eight Ball for all 20 of its answers to appear at least once.

* * *

"Potter," Lucius began, thoughtfully regarding the shiny black orb he'd handily relieved of his wife. He gave it a little jog and it came up with a cheery message:  **Outlook good**.

"'Malfoy', Father," Draco interjected calmly, not raising his eyes from the Financial section of the  _Straits Times_ , Sunday Morning Wizarding Edition, "his legal surname is now 'Malfoy', though Harry still insists on using 'Potter' professionally. I hope to disabuse him of that ridiculous notion soon enough."

"Git," Harry muttered darkly, "you  _wish_ ," and continued on reading the  _Quibbler's_  Travel section. Draco chuckled, in no way perturbed, and turned a page.

"Er… _Malfoy_ ," Lucius continued, clearly reluctant to use this intimate form of address when referring to the terminally irritating, utterly abominable 'Boy Who Insisted on Bloody Surviving'—or rather, more recently, the 'Boy Who Could Now Properly Be Termed a 'Malfoy''. That last entitlement galled him no end, even more than the first had, years ago.

"'Harry', Lucius, darling." Narcissa looked up only briefly from the Daily Gardening Report in the  _Prophet_ , but her glance was sizzling and pointed like a Very Big Stick. "He's your son now, just as much as our dearest Draco."

"…Urgh, fine! Harry!" Lucius was close to giving up altogether on his quest to address the—the  _person_ who now had the full and legal right to join the Malfoy family 'round the Malfoy private breakfast table, and thus extract the information he so ardently desired in re the vastly intriguing Oracle his son had somehow laid his grubby hands upon. Lucius's thin lips pursed fretfully; he frowned horridly; he achieved fully the 'I just bit into something both bloody unexpected and sodding awful' grimace he'd perfected over the years for dealing with Muggle sorts but, bravely, as befitting a true Malfoy, he forged forward, only mildly daunted by his wife's minatory eye.

"Tell me, where, precisely, did you come across this piece? I understand it is your Bonding gift to our Draco." Lucius gave the fascinating black ball another little shake, causing the floaty white triangle to take a happy zip through  **Outlook not so good**  and  **Ask me again later**.

He frowned at it, as the Ball seemed a mercurial sort, and perhaps Draco was mistaken in relying upon it.

"From Hermione, Mr. Malfoy," Harry answered, civilly enough. The previous month's worth of marriage to the blond menace had been brilliant; this month had brought the vastly unwelcome persons of Lucius and Narcissa to darken the Manor's broad and imposing doorstep. Harry had remained civil for the last fortnight only by dint of reminding himself often (sometimes three or four times a minute, during meals) of the previous month. It was a strain, he admitted freely to his empathetic spouse, having Lucius Malfoy up his nose constantly. Draco's response to this had been exactly as required from a smitten husband: shagging sessions in their Auror cubicle had increased exponentially.

"The Mud—" Three sets of eyes instantly swiveled to Lucius, glaring. Six separate holes bored (metaphorically) through his forehead. He stopped his tongue immediately, cleared his throat, and quelled his rather understandable flash of temper at being non-verbally schooled by his own  _children—_ Feh!—with staunch Malfoy fortitude. "Um.  _Muggle_ born Witch?"

"That's correct, Father," Draco answered in Harry's stead. "Hermione Granger, Harry's best mate from Hogwarts," he added, stealing a quick sideways glance at his newly Bonded partner, now visibly fuming.  _Best not to let Harry open his mouth to respond further to Father at this moment_ , Draco determined, calculating damages sustained with acuity.  _Or at all, really. In fact, it was likely even better that they should finish breakfast in peaceful quietude and then seek out some location far more relaxing the very moment breakfast ended—and then stay out all day, likely. Father retired generally at nine, sharp._

 _Have a picnic_ , Draco thought, with a certain amount of pleased delight at his own sudden burst of romantic spontaneity.  _Potter will like that_.

 _I'm going to murder that scheming sly old bastard_ , Harry was thinking, simultaneously, busy cruelly rending his innocent crumpet to shreds with the fingers of his unoccupied hand,  _for still existing on this planet despite me. Bloody annoying old arsewipe! Bleeding bigot!_

After glaring sullenly a half-second longer at his erstwhile father-in-law, he huffed and returned to his newspaper, well aware that Malfoy— _his_  Malfoy, the barely tolerable one—might be offended if he, Harry, hexed his horrible new sire-in-law of his with Burbling Boils. Because, when  _his_  Malfoy was offended by things, he tended to become vocal, and Harry, at all costs, wished to avoid that botheration.

"Why do you ask, Father?" With every appearance of calm deliberation, Draco reached out a careless hand and relieved his direct forebear of the Eight Ball as smoothly as Lucius had appropriated it from his lovely wife, not two minutes previous. "And thank you; that's mine. I shall be returning it to our suite now."

With a casual wave of Draco's wand, the Ball Vanished, despite Lucius's furtive grab at it.

"It's a…curious item, this Ball," Lucius allowed, picking up his compote spoon instead, just as if he'd meant to, all along. Muffy, their serving elf  _du jour_ , sprang into action, providing him a generous helping of sliced exotic fruits swimming in champagne. "Magical, is it, son?"

Harry Potter  _Malfoy_ —despite himself—grinned at Lucius's unsubtle prodding. He rustled his newspaper to hide that, and then traded the Travel section off to Draco after yet another meaningful glance shared between them, snagging one of the house elves' superior crumpets along the way to replace his damaged one. It was already toasted a golden brown, buttered thickly and lavished with apricot-plum marmalade, just as Harry currently liked it. There were at least some advantages to being married to a Malfoy, Harry admitted. Silently, of course. He certainly wasn't going about saying  _that_ aloud—not here, with Lucius listening.

Not ever, with  _anyone_  listening. Malfoy was a right prick to deal with when he was feeling superior. Which was often.

"You could maybe call it that, Mr. Malfoy," he smirked, scanning the Nikkei Index with sudden absorbing interest, his brows rising when he caught the excessively high price-per-bale of uncured Romanian dragon leather. Draco, looking up from the Time-Turner rental adverts in the  _Quibbler_ , sent yet another sly glance his way and Harry met it with widened, intentionally gullible green eyes. They gazed at each other, in perfect connubial harmony. "If you wanted. Right, Malfoy?"

"'Draco', Harry. Please practice the use of it, my given name," Draco returned urbanely, one eye twitching into a barely-there wink of shared humour over his deplorably transparent pater's antics. He then settled his eyes firmly upon the article on the Greek Islands Potter had seemed so very interested in before they'd handed off their respective sections.

 _Perhaps they could hop over to the Parthenon for luncheon, instead_? Draco pondered.  _Potter might enjoy that; certainly, the scenery was delightful, the cuisine healthful and Father absolutely abhorred Greece with a passion_. "And yes, you could, Harry," Draco replied after a long moment, remembering at last that Harry had asked him a rhetorical question. It was his bounden duty to aid Harry in winding Father up another degree; matrimony required it. "I know  _I_ find it very, er, useful," he drawled, implying all sorts of things that caused Lucius to perk his pointy ears up and look alarmingly interested.

"Lucius," Narcissa returned her folded section of newsprint to the table with a slap, whereupon it promptly Vanished. She picked up her teacup with vigour, newly refreshed by the incredibly indispensible Muffy.

Muffy and her immediate kin were the house elf contingent who took such excellent care of the actual Malfoy personages, as opposed to their numerous possessions, acting as valets, secretaries, dressers, tailors, serving personnel and such. Harry, being a new Malfoy, blessed them daily, especially as they all had that same zealous attitude Kreacher did, minus the weird Black family dependency. It was refreshing, no matter what Hermione had to say about it. He liked having clean underthings and socks available at all times, in findable places, such as his dresser drawers. He enjoyed a cold butterbeer appearing with the snap of his fingers—and he especially relished the relative sanity of the Malfoy elves, after his experiences with Dobby and Kreacher.

"You do recall, Lucius," Narcissa continued in a steely tones, stirring two lumps of sugar into her tea with great concentration and absolutely no disharmonious clinking, "that we're set to meet up with the Greengrasses and the Spodes at the Club, do you not? For luncheon?"

"In a moment, Narcissa," Lucius waved her off, frowning. The Muggle Ball had taken all his interest. "Erm, Harry," he reluctantly addressed his appalling excuse for a son-in-law once more, "where precisely did your...acquaintance obtain it?"

"Toy store, I'd wager," Harry replied, after casting a moment's quick cogitation at it. The Index was of far greater importance to him, at the moment. "Muggle, likely, Mr. Malfoy. Draco, did you see the EuroBludger stock increase? That's a start-up company I've been watching closely."

"I did," Draco nodded, not looking up. "Already taken care of, Potter. Friday."

"Good." Harry nodded back, satisfied. "One hundred shares, right?"

Draco nodded again. Lucius found himself doing the same, distracted by all the bobbing heads. "One hundred shares, Potter—as we'd agreed," Draco confirmed, his gaze dreamy over images of Barbados.  _Much too far for luncheon, though_ , he thought regretfully.

"…Toy store?" Lucius butted his pale head in once more, recalling his most imperative Mission: Ball obtainment. " _Muggle_?" His exceptionally well-bred tones were beyond horrified. The possibility of the device being of Muggle origin even outweighed the utter unfairness of having his own son address Potter as 'Potter' whilst  _he_ , Lucius Malfoy, was chastised for doing this very same thing!

"Lucius," Narcissa's voice was just that much more insistent.  _A terrier with a chew-toy_ , Lucius snorted—under his breath, of course.  _Bloody woman and her bloody luncheons_! "My love. We join them at eleven, on the dot, for an aperitif. You'll need to be dressed, darling."

"Where, then, might one find this toy store, Potter?" Lucius ignored his upcoming lunch with the gentry in favour of a topic of far greater interest: the Eight Ball. He had not missed his son's consultation of the mysterious black orb when choosing investments; he'd not been blind nor deaf when Narcissa sneaked it off to her private Sitting Room to consult with it on the QT over the likelihood of grandchildren.

"'Malfoy'," Draco murmured, turning a page and squinting.  _Gibraltar and Monaco also were of interest_ , he noted, seeing the ticks his Bondmate had left beside them.  _Clearly, his Harry was now in dire need of a vacation_. "Or 'Harry', if you must, Father. Though he won't like it."

"Muggle London, likely," Harry finally glanced up at the repeated mention of his name, having absorbed the wholesale closing price of Trilling Turtle Eggs for his planned Monday business meeting with the Weasleys, as well as the recent ups and downs of that particular commodity. The Eggs were an important ingredient in Invisible String Sauce, and WWW's regular supplier was proving a sore disappointment. " _Lucius_ ," he added evilly, for his own secret enjoyment. "Sir."

"Ah, I see," Lucius returned unwillingly, wincing in well-bred agony at the uncalled-for familiarity of an upstart Potter referring to his elders-and-betters on a first name basis and then allowed it pass unremarked, subsiding into a sulky silence, broken only by papaya-mastication. It took but a moment of chewing to realize he was actually thankful the abominable, appalling Potter-at-his-breakfast-table had  _not,_ in fact, ventured quite so far as to address him more properly as 'Father'.  _Now_ _that_ _would be truly excruciating_! Lucius concluded decisively. He'd likely sick up his fruit cup were that to occur!

Narcissa redoubled her glare at him, as if she knew exactly what Lucius was thinking—and, more's the pity, likely she did.

"Which is to say, you should make ready right  _now_ , darling." She, at least, was not to be put off by Lucius's sudden interest in things Muggle or papaya, no matter how very unusual either of these new interests were for a man of his staid tastes. "You know you take much longer to dress than I do, Lucius. And then there's your hair, dearest."

Harry, caught off-guard, snorted his mouthful of Oolong right out his nose in a spray of brown liquid, obliterating a whole table of fascinating statistics on historical Jabberwock claw cost changes during the late Nineties boom market. In all fairness, he couldn't help it. That idjiit berk Malfoy—the younger; Harry's pesky husband-and-Auror partner—had just twitched his upper lip just so in sly amusement and then there was the look on his new father-in-law's face: priceless!

* * *

* * *

 

 _NB: And we're off and running—or rather, rolling—as Lucius scrambles after his latest obsession and the author scrambles after a PLOT! We'll see where it takes us, shall we? As half the fun is getting there, yes? And this is a WIP, mind you, and a giftish one, to the wonderful enchanted_jae, for her birthday. Posting in fits-and-starts, then._


	2. Serpent's Tooth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco proves to be recalcitrant not only over Potter but also over that Muggle Eight Ball.
> 
> NB: Lucius, as I've been advised, is terribly far afield of his IC canon persona. In fact, he's loitering about in an entirely different topography altogether. This (being unashamed pointless Crack!PWP) is to be expected. Please forgive all character derangement; no doubt I shall be indulging in yet more of it.

"Father."

Draco had snatched the opportunity to confront his  _pater familias_  whilst his mother was gathering her wrap, gloves, millenary and sundry other absolutely necessary accoutrements for their planned luncheon out. Potter was occupied overseeing the picnic he and Draco were employing as a convenient escape hatch from the Manor. They'd settled on the consumption of a quick  _al fresco_  meal at the Hollow (now under restoration as a future weekend get-away cottage), to be followed by their usual Sunday afternoon visit to the blathering occupants of the St. Mungo's Muggle ward.

The larger part of Draco's attention was therefore on the possibilities of rogering Potter, also  _al fresco_ , with perhaps a smattering of vinaigrette for lube, and the various Cushioning and Insect Repellent charms he'd need to sustain, along with his nearly ever-active boner. It was a pleasant prospect for a hazy, lazy summer's day; far more so than the obligatory warning off of his dodgy, ethically-challenged Papa.

"Yes, son?"

Lucius was toying with his second Firewhiskey of the morning, and thus far more at ease than he'd been at breakfast. It was his habit to consume three Firewhiskies before any social event organized by his wife; Lucius had developed a keen sense of survival over the years, to his credit. Excepting that one time with the Dark Lord…oh, but he wouldn't dwell on that.

Sadly, Firewhiskey tended to render Lucius ruminative, even when he'd no desire to dwell.

_There was a Potter in his house_ , Lucius recalled angrily,  _a Potter!_  And his own blood-and-flesh had not only allowed such a blasphemy to occur, he'd gone and sodding well arranged it! A blasted  _Potter_! The Boy Who Had the Utter Gall to extricate both Lucius  _and_ his precious family from the tentacles of the Dark Lord's unfortunately overlong (and, apparently, sadly evil-who knew?) reach!  _Pah! Feh!_  Lucius thought, developing a minor facial tic at the utter nerve of that pitiful, shabby, irritating excuse for a Mudblood, Halfblood, and likely illegitimate Wizard playing such a large role in his own salvation! Lucius was properly appalled at his family's changed circumstances and quite honestly happy to be feeling that way. One should be appalled by Potters.

Sadly, though, his only son-and-heir was now forever Bonded, henceforth and of his own volition, to that exact same appalling, shabby, disingenuous, green-eyed, shaggy-haired growth on the arsecheeks of the Earth. And—worse yet—Lucius now needed Potter's aid in obtaining a black shiny Omniscient Ball of the sort his son owned…or perhaps he simply needed to acquire his son's Ball, Lucius concluded, craftily.

Draco, observing the play of emotions across his father's haughty visage, instantly distrusted his father's smile, and with damned good reason. He struck at once, getting the first blow in whilst his Father was still cogitating.

"Father, when precisely do you and Mother intend to return to the villa in Juan-les-Pins? Or Paris? Or even the Continent, as a whole?"

"Why do you ask, son?" Lucius settled back into his armchair by the hearth and allowed his welcoming, paternal smile to thin out, morphing into an oblique, off-putting slash. "Is there some sort of…issue?"

"No issue, Father," Draco snapped, "other than the fact Harry is  _not_  appreciative of your apparently extended plans to visit and, as Harry is not, neither am  _I_. We've both regular jobs, you know. Nine to five, and that's not taking into account the special cases on the weekends! Responsibilities, Father—deadlines! We can't faff off any time we please, entertaining you."

"It's  _Harry._..then, who is 'not appreciative'," Lucius returned, meditatively. "How very, very…appalling."

"'Malfoy'," Draco rejoined, automatically. "'Harry James Potter Malfoy', to be exact.  _I_ did the marrying, thus 'Malfoy'. And it  _is_ appalling, Father. You and Mother shouldn't even be in Britain; you've been exiled by the Ministry, remember?"

"Yes, yes, I do recall it. No need to remind me, boy," Lucius admitted, with dry impatience, and then scowled at his all too vivid recollection of becoming acquainted with his only-son-and-heir's recent Bonding via the Howler forwarded him by one Mrs Molly Weasley, Nosey Parker and Gossip Extraordinaire, but he didn't allow all the pungent and descriptive phrases he'd stored up concerning Mrs Weasley (and Weasleys in general) to spew forth. His only son and heir was already twitchy enough over Lucius's presumed parole violation; no need to add fuel to the fire of his ire.

"Your lovely mother, Draco," Lucius said instead, adroitly changing the subject to something more immediately pressing, "is oddly taken by that Muggle device. I do wonder if…"

"If?" Draco echoed. He cocked a familial brow, rocking back in his heels and readying himself for potential hexing, insidious persuasion tactics or simply a heaping cartload of metaphorical Thestral site. With Father it was best to be prepared for anything. "Father?"

Lucius smiled at him ingratiatingly. In other words, with a great many white teeth showing. "If you might be persuaded to give it over, son. You know her birthday's in the offing."

Draco twitched his both his fair brows together and furrowed his forehead. "Of course I know, Father. Harry and I have already chosen an appropriate gift—I hardly think she needs my Eight Ball. My  _used_ Muggle Eight Ball.  My not-shiny, not-Magical, not in any way out of the ordinary Muggle Eight Ball."

"As I said, son," Lucius repeated, eyes glinting, "'oddly taken with'. No accounting for a Witches' taste, what?" he added jovially, and then made a great business of tapping his chin with a neatly-kept forefinger, as if considering Draco's situation on the whole. "Oh—well, I suppose  _you_  wouldn't know, would you, as you don't appear to have intimate dealings with attractive well-bred Witches in any way at this juncture in your young, sad, terribly gone-astray life, having so recently acquired your precious Potter. Indeed, how could you possibly ever know what a Witch requires?"

"Father," Draco's return sneer was cold and cutting—nay, outright dangerous. "Say one single word more against Harry and the Manor wards will be closed to you permanently."

"Of course, son; but of course!"

Lucius instantly became more than jovial; he catapulted straight into officious, which had the unfortunate effect of rendering his overall appearance somewhat constipated. Malfoys did not do 'officious' terribly well. They were much more suited to 'demanding', or even 'superior'. In a pinch, 'smarmy'.

"Wouldn't dream of it, son; perfectly understandable of you to valiantly attempt to defend your Bondmate's sorry arse—"

" _Father_."

"As he is your chosen Bondmate and all that. Never wish to offend my heir, naturally, even if..." Lucius's inflammatory words dribbled to a halt; for he was at once made overwhelmingly aware, perhaps, that he'd firmly put his foot in it. His son's stern features and body language (and that pernicious wand of his, damn Draco's youthful reflexes!) were all indicating that Lucius had ventured ill-footed into potentially personally debilitating territory. 

"See that you don't, then," Draco ordered sharply. He tilted his chin in a determined manner, awaiting his father's next sally. Certainly, Lucius Malfoy wouldn't allow a little thing like an outright threat of expulsion from their centuries-old family home prevent him from clawing after whatever he now desired. That was the Malfoy Way. Draco, for all his finer feelings for that oaf Potter, did understand this. Indeed, he subscribed.

"Now, as to that 'Eight Ball', as you call it—" Lucius got right back into the game, undaunted.

"No," Draco replied flatly. "You can't have mine, Father. However, I will be so kind as to provide you the direction to the Muggle toy store Harry mentioned. It's near enough the Alley. You may high your sorry arse there and buy Mother one yourself if you think she needs one so badly."

"Ah…so." Lucius regarded his son's set face and specific species of killer, evil glare.  _Touchy, touchy!_   _P'raps there's something to Cissy's natterings on as to a potential grandchild after all_ , he speculated silently, and forlornly resolved to keep a firmer check upon his natural aversion to all things Potter—er,  _Malfoy_. 'Harry James Potter Malfoy'. Because, even more unfortunately, 'once a Malfoy, always a Malfoy'. That was The Way.

"I see." He swallowed hard. It was possible that maybe, perhaps, he may've underestimated the sheer steely will of the younger generation. "And you cannot be persuaded to simply provide me yours, Son?" 

"No,"  Draco said simply.  "I won't." 

"Hmm. well. Thank you, at least, for the information," Lucius remembered to tack on, meekly enough, conceding defeat for the nonce. He'd hate to be rash if Potter was indeed breeding; Cissy would  _not_  forgive him, Muggle Ball or no.

Draco waved his wand once, and a small sheet of parchment appeared, etched with a map of central London and a written set of directions. "Here you go, Father. Do have a nice luncheon with your friends. Make certain to visit Gringott's and exchange your Galleons for Muggle money; their shopkeepers carry on something absurd when asked to take Wizarding currency. And do stay out of trouble. Good day!"

He nodded politely and shut the study door smartly behind him, leaving Lucius alone-to instantly gulp down the rest of his whiskey and pour himself another double.

Tossing that off, Lucius winced at his deeply disguised inner purgatory over the matter of Potter, gagging silently at the thought of facing such a thing over the breakfast table till he, himself, was too wretched and feeble to drag himself from his suite to do so. There was absolutely no doubt in Lucius's mind that his poor, deluded, son-and-only-heir Draco was quite firmly attached to this…this appallingly-no-longer-a-Potter. That being the case, and Narcissa's not-so-secret desire for a grandbaby to fuss over taken into account, there was likely no being shed of the little twerp in his natural lifespan, short of convenient death or accident.

But the absolute worst thing was—the real kicker—Lucius's lovely wife Narcissa apparently adored the annoyingly foreshortened ex-Gryffindor and so-called 'Saviour' twat just as much as she adored their  _real_ son, Draco. And if Narcissa adored Potter, Lucius's objections to the match were pretty much toast on the turning spit. Burnt, brittle, dry-as-dust, store-purchased  _Muggle_ toast.


	3. Sex on the Beach, Ball

"Sex on the beach, Ball?" Draco asked, turning his Muggle Oracle over in the nimble fingers of one hand. "Would Potter like that?"

Yes, definitely. The Ball affirmed.

"Potter would," the dark-haired figure in the act of wrapping himself 'round Draco's person agreed. "Absolutely. As long as you remember the Sand Repelling spells, Malfoy. And a blanket."

"There you are!" Draco spun around and snogged his husband, tucking the Ball in his pocket for safekeeping. One never knew with Father and it was best to be safe and not sorry. "I was looking for you, earlier. We need to shift our arses now or we'll be late to St. Mungo's later."

"Your mother caught me," Harry admitted ruefully. "And then grilled me. And then insisted on going through the photo album of our Ceremony one more time, image by image, with commentary. She was supposed to be already off to their luncheon—don't even know what they're still doing here, Draco. I'd thought I'd be safe for this morning, at least."

"Ah, sorry, Potter," Draco frowned, and made a mental note to cautiously request of his beloved mother that she not corner Harry. Potter was skittish enough, yet, what with the thought of being adhered to a Malfoy—several Malfoys, really— for the remainder of his earthly days, especially now that Father had somehow wangled himself out of exile. Mother would not help matters at all by continuing to wax soppily over past ceremonial rites. Or possibly grandchildren, a subject he knew loomed ominously large on her 'To Do' List. "I'll speak to her."

Even though he'd damned well outdone himself with that bloody Bonding ceremony! Yet another part of Draco's mind (the slightly more self-centred bit) clamoured to be acknowledged, promptly whingeing on cue. Potter had been rendered near speechless with delight by their Bonding—or rather, Draco had been fairly sure, at the time, it was 'delight', though it may have also been the pell-mell timing of the event, he admitted privately. Potter, he was learning, was not fond of surprises.

On second thought, best to limit Potter's exposure to his parents as much as possible. And contact post-haste the appropriate Ministry department concerning the entry of certain illegal aliens upon British soil.

"I don't mind so much, normally," Harry shook his head, still rueful, "but, your mother…well. I'm starting to suspect she may have something else banging 'round that wily brain of hers, Draco. I mean, she's suddenly awfully interested in my health records, and whether I've still a baby book, and my parent's parents—"

"Potter," Draco interrupted swiftly, anxious to steer his beloved's attention far, far away from such things as spawn and progeny, and mothers-in-law who might demand them momentarily, "we'll be later yet if we don't Apparate right now. Do you have the hamper?"

"What?" Harry was startled. "Oh—oh, yes, right here. Nixie packed it; I hope that's alright? I think it's just salad and wine."

"Perfect," Draco nodded. "That means we'll have the proper wineglasses for once, if Nixie was the one. I do so hate it when they have the younger elves practice on these hampers of ours; you'd think they'd realize we'd need the accompaniments to be all-inclusive whilst dining in the rough, but no. Always leaving something crucial out—er. Anyway, yes," Draco stopped speaking abruptly, realizing his nervousness over his mother's agenda had caused him to babble unnecessarily-and to his own detriment. Indeed, Potter was eyeing him very oddly, indeed.

"Um, ready, then?"

Harry swept up the shrunken wicker basket from the nearby side table where he'd deposited it and took firm grip of Draco's forearm.

"Ready," he nodded.

"Very well, then; let's be off, Pot—" A stepping turn together and they were away, at last.

""I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with Muggle London, Lucius. Ask one of the elves, darling."

"Any why would they be any more familiar, my dear?" Lucius queried grumpily.

Despite his best delaying tactics, they were still horridly on track for the projected luncheon with the Spodes and Greengrasses Senior. He would bloody expire of boredom well before the entree was served, Lucius knew. But at least he'd the thought of the Muggle Ball amused him. Now, to go about acquiring one, as his dratted son-and-heir was proving such a resolute little prat.

"They never go there, " Lucius continued. "They've no cause to go there, you realize? They're house elves, Narcissa, not fairies. Really, that's not the most helpful of suggestions, my love. I do believe I shall be forced to inquire of P-P-Pot—"

Narcissa glared.

"Ha-Ha-Harry," Lucius finished, catching himself admirably, despite the three (possibly four, but who was counting? There was a Potter in his Manor, after all!) Firewhiskies.

"Very good," Narcissa announced decisively, snapping her wand back into her sleeve with a business-like 'shhfft!' and nodding as if the matter was settled entirely. "I don't believe you managed a civil conversation with him yet, dearest, and he is our son-in-law. You shall have to practice."

"I'd rather eat glass shards," Lucius mumbled, under his breath. "And glue."

"Excuse me, dear?"

Speaking of glass shards, there was a bucketload of them menacing him, if Lucius was any judge of Narcissa's glares and stares—and he was, he was! His lovely wife and helpmeet could puncture egos and deflate pretensions at twenty-five yards without even breathing hard. Up close and personal, Lucius had little or no reasonable chance of survival, should she feel inclined to let loose a volley. Which, should he muck up this luncheon with disparaging remarks about his newest relative-by-Bonding, might very well ensure. No, he'd no choice but to be positive about Potter, no matter how it galled him.

Lucius swallowed hard, considering his options carefully, and elected to toss back his silky hair in a suitably elegant manner; thus effectively—and wordlessly—reminding his darling wife that she, at least, had Bonded herself to a fine figure of a Wizard, and one not at all run to fat like that great toad Spode or that tub of lard Green-arse. Not to mention his countering advantage of bucket loads of Galleons, sufficient to offset spousal glare damage of quite high degree.

Narcissa's eyes softened just enough to allow Lucius the lebensraum to breathe more easily. This he did, having long years of subtle marital negotiation under his figurative belt.

"I look forward to it, Narcissa, my love," he replied hastily, in a much louder voice, and one that positively reeked of conciliation. "Always a pleasure to welcome another M-Ma-Malfoy into the fold. Er, when exactly did you say our guests would be meeting us? Very soon now, isn't it, darling? I can hardly wait to see them; it's been so long."

"Yes, dear," Narcissa replied, fondly, and stroked the finely berobed husbandly forearm she clung to just as fondly, with perfectly filed, meticulously painted, pale mauve nails.

"Just so."


	4. Lucius is a Menace

"Why are their grandchildren so fugging ugly, darling?" Lucius demanded, semi- _sotto voce,_ but not really. Narcissa did  _not_ wince her displeasure at his alcohol-enhanced stridency; that would be  _not done in public_. "The girls! Those bloody awful twin female persons— _were_  they even  _girls_? Huge front teeth on the one and the other had the absolute worst possible complexion! And that boy—he could've been a roasted peacock, that one; same swollen belly as Spode-the-Toad has, my love, and those beady little eyes, staring, staring! As if he'd peck you to death soon as look at you! Feh! Fugly, fugly,  _fugly_ little prats!"

"At least," Narcissa countered acidly, "they have them, dearest, which is more than we do." She directed her well-oiled and blithely mumbling spouse towards the Club's hearth and then pinched him, hard, on the wrist, to gain his wobbly attention. "Now, Lucius, you mentioned an errand of great importance?"

"Ow! Hambleys!" Lucius crowed happily, undaunted by any passing pain short of Cruciatus, "off to get my Muggly Ball! At last!"

He was quite cheerily soused, Malfoy Senior, despite lunching heartily on rare  _biftek_  and tiny, garden-fresh steamed potatoes, a salad of microscopic greenery laced with fig infused balsamic essence and first cold-pressed Grecian oils, and a hoity-toity cheeseboard no gourmand would dare sneeze at (or on). The Club charged its Members a high premium for good reason: its Chef elves were all Michelin-rated, just like the Malfoy's own Dupree and Henri. The cuisine, fortunately, offset the quality of conversation, which—when dining with the Spodes and the Greengrasses—was abysmally low.

The accompanying wines, apparently, offset even the level of the company, miserable as it had been, as evidenced by his sometime Lordship's current behaviour. He was effectively staggered.

"It's 'Hamleys', darling," Narcissa corrected patiently. "And perhaps another day? When you're feeling a bit more the thing?"

She halted their progress just before the Club's crested andirons and subjected her husband to a thorough once-over, determining the full state of his current inebriation. Circumstances, sadly, had driven her beloved husband to imbibe perhaps more than was either necessary or advisable, especially over the last few years of enforced exile. That their chateau was smack-dab in the heart of French champagne country hadn't helped matters one iota.

"I don't know that the Muggles would appreciate your particular brand of charm at the moment, my love," she continued dryly, and kept firm hold of Lucius's elbow when he swayed. "You're rather horridly, er, tipsy, Lucius. Worse than I'd thought."

"Am not!" Lucius declared, drawing himself up to stare down at her. "Not a bit of it, Narshisha! And I want to go to Hambloo's right now! No waiting! I  _need_  my Muggly-wuggly Ball," he whinged soulfully, blinking hopeful grey eyes at her. "I want it."

"Pish," Narcissa rejoined, now entirely  _un_ charmed, and took up a handful of Floo powder, waving off a helpful elf who wordlessly offered assistance with her now visibly reeling husband. "Tosh. I don't think so, Lucius. I rather think you're up for a nice quiet nap, and perhaps a spot of tea after."

"Nooo!" Lucius protested, flailing his free arm wildly. "Am per-fect-ual-ly shober, Narcissha! I  _am_! Wanna go—wanna go now! Muggly Ball like Draco has—I must have it!"

His wife of thirty odd years rolled her lovely eyes and briefly considered casting a Sobrietus, but that was just so recherché when out in the public eye, as they were. Besides, her beloved spouse was much more amusing—and malleable—when three sheets to the wind. She'd plans for him and a little store of future blackmail material wouldn't come amiss.

"Yes, darling, of course," she said agreeably, changing tactics, but when she tossed the powder, she still called out "Malfoy Manor!"

Indeed, Lucius's childish lack of self-control might very well prove useful in the long run. With a smidge of adroit steerage and some leading, Narcissa calculated, she'd be able to winnow out Lucius's plans for the Muggle Eight Ball before he passed into the drunken stupor she'd so politely referred to as a 'nap', and that, to her mind, _was_ truly imperative. The thought of Lucius Malfoy faffing about, fully equipped with the certain knowledge of future events and the obvious leg up on them the Eight Ball would no doubt confer, fair made her skin crawl. This was  _Lucius_ , and the poor dear was so easily manipulated, after all—just look at the kerfuffle his fascination with the Dark Lord had led to!  _Not_  a scenario she could imagine herself—nor her poor unwitting son and son-in-law—enduring yet again with any great cheer!

And also, she wished to obtain a few grandsprogs to call her own—and wave endless photos of them under certain other person's stuck-up noses. That Miseriachordia Spode bint, for example. The _Witch_.

* * *

 

"Mmm, Malfoy," Harry was murmuring; he didn't have the opportunity to say much more than that—his spouse had him pinned on the picnic blanket and was snogging him silly.

"Potter—oh, Potter," Draco muttered, having marked Harry's working throat all up-and-down and black-and-blue with blatantly reddening nips and nibbles, "I find I am in need of you. You game for that?"

"Um-hmm," Harry grinned, and waved a finger at their respective—undone—trousers, causing them to Vanish. "I do so love it when they do that," he remarked. He looked back up at Draco's determined grey gaze, blinking a bit at the intensity. It was rather like being immersed in a sudden sauna. "Don't you?"

"I love lots of things, Harry," Draco admitted, and stuck two fingers in Harry's mouth, so he could wet them with spit. "And first and foremost is your delicious arse. Lick, Harry," he commanded, and Harry did, closing his eyes and sucking hard, so that his cheeks hollowed.

Draco groaned. Nearly constant shagging had done not a bleeding thing for his monumental self-control; it was as if all the years he'd spent damming up the flood of desire; rigidly keeping it in check so that his careful manipulation of the man beneath him would advance as planned, were simply a bygone dream. He'd been left with no real and effective means to staunch the almost constant swell of semen that tumbled into his cock whenever he caught sight of Harry in passing—and he was treated these days to the almost constant view of Potter. In his bed; at his table; in his gardens—at work and home and every social occasion to which they ventured, there was that pesky, annoying, rumple-haired Halfblood Wonder Wizard, taunting him.

Mmm, lovely. Draco closed his eyes so he could better appreciate the Wonder Wizard's wondrous wet tongue, currently poking at his cuticles: a brand-new 'sweet spot' of his, apparently!

Harry pulled off at last, leaving Draco harder than blazes, and pressed a few tiny kisses to the tips of Draco's sopping wet digits. He opened his green, green eyes wide and then narrowed them just as abruptly, and Draco sucked in all the immediately available oxygen in the vicinity through his flared nostrils. If he'd been a bull, he'd have pawing the sod to shreds, straining. He rolled his hips instead, butting his cock into Harry's spread thighs, and barely held back from growling out his building frustration.

"I'm ready, Draco," Harry murmured—soft, inviting and who'd've guessed Draco could get any harder? It didn't seem possible and yet, there it was. "Now come on—shag me, won't you? Into the bloody  _dirt_ , if you please," Draco's  _objet d'amour_  went on to request, most reasonably, hips heaving, and Draco was instantly highly irked that his ex-Gryffindor Harry had the gall to exhibit more countenance than  _he_ , a consummately cool Slytherin.

"C-Can  _do_ ," Draco hissed, temper volatile, eyes merest slits of molten silver, absolutely furious with lust, and dove the fuck in immediately, ramming his cock home into Harry's hole with a tonsil-rattling wallop on the first rough surge. " _Malfoy_!" he addressed his only slightly-used but still nearly new husband, in grating tones of undeniable ownership—thus earning himself a very decent 'Harry grin' to go on with.

* * *

 

_And so we continue the thrilling Sequel, in fits and starts. See how the author is seizing already, desperately seeking a PLOT for this PWP!_


	5. Dudley Does Right!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NB: Now, we all know and recognize that sequels are never as good as the original, right? So, you'll be forgiving of me as I wander about, casting about for a PLOT and inserting PWP and het and maybe femme, too, as the fancy strikes?   
> Yes? Of course you will!   
> I never doubted it for a second.

**Reply hazy—try again**. Dudley shook it but the stubborn Ball refused to spit out anything other than  **Ask again later**.

"Right. Where in the bloody tarnation  _are_  they, Ball? How 'bout that, then? Can you tell me  _that_ , at least?" Dudley Dursley's round face was a red verging on purple, a shade Harry Potter would've found most reminiscent of the not-good old days spent with his horrid family.

The floaty white triangle made no answer, drifting vaguely through any number of possibilities before Dudders realized the question itself was bloody useless and not the instrument of foretelling. He shook his close-shaved noggin, murmuring softly to himself a whole series of words that sounded remarkably like "Bloody operator headspace! And bloody buggering little bastards—they  _know_  I've practice!"'

Fortunately, the door of his cramped little cubbyhole of an office chose that moment to burst open—or rather, his wife choose to burst through it, their daughter in tow. Dudley Dursley was effectively distracted, but not enough not to slip the Eight Ball in his packet.

"Papa!" Dudley found himself strangled by the wiry arms of a tiny, green-eyed assailant wearing spectacles almost too large for her heart-shaped face. He smiled and hugged his attacker back, tickling her into a fit of high-pitched little girl giggles.

"Nearly through, Duddikins?" Millicent demanded, not bothering with a greeting beyond the customary peck on his forehead. "Goldie and I are more than ready, luv. You know how she gets, too."

Millie glared in emphasis and made furtive little shooing motions with the hand not tethering their daughter—and the glare meant, as Dudders understood it, that their darling dear had read all the magazines in the Waiting Room already and was thirsting heartily after the promised visit to Flourish & Botts. If not presented promptly with follow-through, she'd likely invade the Healer's Reference Library next and the last time that happened, Dudders had nearly lost his post. It had taken Mils hours to do the reshelving, even with that wand of hers. Even with both Harry and Malfoy helping.

Dudley sighed, and then smiled. Ruddy genius, his little girl, but oh, he could've bought a very nice cycle with the money they spent regularly on books and parchment! And they sorely needed an addition to No. 4 Privet Drive, just to house Goldie's library. "The Malfoy and the Mutt are late, dear, so…" he shrugged and raised his brows at her. "I've got to stay to brief 'em, sorry. Can't get away yet."

"We'll go on ahead, then, lovie," Millie shared a lewd grimace over Goldie's mussy head (spousal code for 'They're likely shagging again; you know how they get, Duddikins—remember us?") with her moon-faced mountain of a mate and turned abruptly to depart, their enchantingly cute three- year old orbiting her like a very small, very tousled black-haired satellite. Mils was never one to waste time on nothing or nobody, Dudley thought fondly. He'd admired that in her from the very get-go.

"Yeah, yeah," he nodded anyway, scrunching his face up peevishly and talking to her shoulder; he wasn't quite done his own whinging yet. She was his dear wife and it was her bounden duty to listen. "I just wish they'd manage just once to be on time, the bleeders. It sucks eggs when I'm late—Master makes me do one hundred pushups right off, Mils. It's terrible!"

"Yes, Dudders, dear—" Millicent wasn't waiting to hear it; other, more pressing duties called: Goldie had snagged one the Muggle psychology tomes and was humming, so she whisked it away with a smile and flourish and gathered their precocious little girl up in her beefy arms.

"Mamacita, you're mean as a badger!  _Pooh_! Papa! Vaya con Merlino, Papa!" Goldie trilled, just before the door slammed behind them. "Bienvenue, Papa!"

"Yes, luvvie girl—whatever you said—in spades! You, too, Mils! I'll be along!" Dudley called out, but Millie and his sweetikin-darling-girl were likely already halfway down the corridor, on their merry way to the Muggle Ward's Floo. His Millie didn't waste her time waiting about, neither.

He sighed and slumped back into his creaky chair, resigned to waiting. His cousin and Malfoy were always running a half-hour or more late these days—curse of the newlyweds, what?—and he might as well go through one or two of the case files stacking up in his In bin and make sure all the ruddy Magick-touched Mugglish bleeders were properly sorted and up-to-date. It was his job, right?

Still…wouldn't hurt to check. Reaching into his robes pocket (he wore 'em to blend in with the Wizarding types, see?) he grabbed the Eight Ball.

"Soon, maybe?" he asked it, hopefully. "Can't shag all the afternoon, can they?"

 **Don't count on it**. The Ball seemed apologetic, even to Dudley, who wasn't given to strange fancies like his ruddy pouf of a Wizard cousin was. He shrugged again and popped the Ball back in his pocket.

Right, then.

Dudders settled in to read reports—a laborious process.

* * *

 

"I do think Draco's actually correct for once. It all depends upon what you ask it."

"You think?"

Pansy smiled, twirling the black orb of Muggledom foretelling between fingernails lacquered scarlet and tipped with gold. Her toenails were all a lovely shade of pearlescent silver, awning-striped with Slytherin green, and were just visible in their cages of bronze-gilt glove leather.

"I do," she stated. "For example, darling, I've just inquired as to your plans for the evening and it's spot on, this Ball."

"And how, may I ask," Blaise curled a lip in mock-derision from his seat on Pansy's ultra-Moderne Danish divan, "would a Muggle-made object be privy to my plans, when I've not even made them yet?"

Pansy Shrunk the Ball and tucked it away somewhere in the skin-tight, ruched red-orange sheath she was wearing. She rose, her legs long and lovely beneath cobwebby smoke-hued hose, and smoothed down the non-existent wrinkles, fingertips wisping across the silk taffeta.

"Because, darling," she smiled—ferally this time; Pansy  _was_  a dangerous bint—and began the slow stroll across the flat's plush ankle-deep carpet, every step an open invitation to commit sexual mayhem of the naughtiest sort, "when I inquired as whether you'd be enjoying your evening, do you know what it instantly advised me?"

"No, what?" Blaise grinned, too, a long, lazy spread of well-shaped lips that just revealed the white slash of teeth in his smooth café-au-lait complexion. "I'm all agog; do enlighten." He lounged farther back on the low-slung lines of the sofa, allowing his legs to gape open just a bit, exposing the crotch of his skin-tight grey leather trousers.

"I had two, actually," Pansy twinkled with sly amusement, having arrived before him. She struck a pose for a half a sec, jutting a hip out. "My first question, specifically, darling," she said, promptly plopping her bum down on his lap with nary a hesitation; wriggling just a bit to ensure that all his various bits were alerted to her emergency-red and sweetly perfumed presence, "was this: 'Will my dear old friend Blaise get his rocks off this evening? Will he be shagged?' and the answer it gave me was  **It is decidedly so.** "

"Um-hmm, and from this you assumed what, exactly?" Blaise smirked, his normal, everyday expression, actually.

"And so then, you see, I naturally had to ask my next logical question of it," Pansy rejoined, ignoring him in favour of examining her polish. Frowning ever so slightly at the tiniest of chips, she buffed a pale pretty hand across Blaise's expensively silk-jersied shoulder. "Which was as follows: "Will my dear old mate Blaize be venturing out on the town this evening or will he be staying in?' and do you know the answer I received to that? Can you take a wild guess, Blaise?"

Blaise shook his head ever so slightly. "Can't be arsed to, Pans, sorry. Besides, I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway, aren't you?"

Pansy grinned. She swotted him on his aquiline nose in a very kittenish manner and then swung a stocking'd leg straight up at a ninety-degree angle, swinging it nimbly over his close-cropped curly head and folding it down neatly on the other side. Having straddled him to a nicety and thus pinned him to the divan, she nipped her victim's cleft chin for attention—which had wandered off. The parted lips and bulging eyeballs were an indication. "Of course I will, silly boy!" she scolded, all sweetness and light. "I never hide these important things from you, darling—you know that."

Blaise frowned mightily at that bucket of pigswill, distracted from his previous distraction.

"Pans," he said solemnly, his features taking on a much more serious cast, "you know that's not at all true. Why, just last month there was that godsawful cockup with the militant sect in Lithuania and I returned from Montréal to find you ensconced in St. Mungo's, bloodied up, with bruises all over. And the month before that was the Doholov dust-up." He frowned at her, eyes intent. "I  _know_ you enjoy your double life, darling Pansy, but there are lines to be drawn, you know, and pain is  _not_  a reward for effort expended; not in  _my_ book—"

"Do you not wonder what the Muggle Ball replied, Blaise, love?" Pansy used her manicured hands to grasp Blaise's well-coiffed head, forcing his eyes to stay focussed on hers. "Keep to task, dearie.  _I'm_ the one asking questions here. Can you—will you— take a wild guess—for me?"

"Pans…" Still frowning, Blaise huffed. "Very well, my love—I give up. What _did_  the buggering Muggle Ball reveal to you?"

"It said—and you recall my second question, don't you? Not too distracted? No?" She smiled again, feline and winsome, and went on. "Well, then. It  _said_ :  **My sources say no**. And we all know what that means, don't we?"

'Minx! You're such a fucking little slag, Pans!  _Damn_ you!" Blaise growled, never slow on the uptake, and snogged her. Thoroughly—without wasting a moment more. Which topic was exactly what Pansy's third (as yet unrevealed) question had centred upon, so indeed, it could be said that the Muggle Ball was—at least mildly—prophetic.

Their on-again, off-again courtship then proceeded to progress once more, nicely.

* * *

 

"Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy…" Draco muttered, bucking like mad under Harry's lips, rolling his head wildly across the hideous tartan wool. "Give it to me, you bastard—I'm dying here! Give me your cock!"

"Stop calling me that and I will," Harry grinned, twisting his fingers just so. "Gladly."

"Never!" Draco swore, and took up his chant again when Harry returned with a will to teasing him almost—but never quite—to climax. "Malfoy!  _Malfoy_ , Harry—that's your name, damn it!" he ranted, his nose pinched from trying to breathe through it too rapidly. "Use it, will you? Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy, I say!"

"Say please," Harry ordered. "Instead."

"No! Why should I when it's  _your_  sodding name, too?—oh, fuck you, Potty—oh,  _ah_! That's it, that's it!" Draco bucked up, his spine curving into a delicious liquid arc, only to lapse back again when Harry withdrew his fingers and stilled the steady pump of his hand. "Ah, buggering fuck, why do you stop like that? Drives me mad."

"Say Uncle," Harry grinned, loon-like, and Malfoy glared at him, sulking. He ceased his fevered gripping of the rucked-up blanket and folded bare arms testily across his naked chest.

"No," he replied. "I've had blue bollocks over you before, Potter; dare say I'll have them again, but I shall not—repeat  _not_ —ever give you the satisfaction when you're being bloody unreasonable. Now, give over. We're late to meet your oaf of a cousin as it is."

"Oh, shite!" Apparently, Scarfaced Pottyhead had forgotten that. Draco snorted his contempt at such disregard of the common courtesies and wriggled his bum at him as potent reminder. "He's going to skin me if we're what sends him late to Sensei again," Harry admitted, with a tiny frown of annoyance. "Very well then, you demanding ponce, I'll let it slide—this time."

"You'd better," Draco nodded sharply, "and ever after, prick, if you know what's good for you. Now shag me proper, Harry. We've hours to get through after this. And there's supper with my parents yet."

"Meh—you're right," Potter admitted and began the process all over again, with slow unhurried caresses and tiny jewel-like kisses scattered across Draco's chest. "I do so hate it when you're right, but still…"

"Still..." Draco agreed, sighing in rapture over the rough treatment of a nipple. "I'm often right, am I not?"

"Mmmm," Harry moaned, allowing himself the pleasure of seeing Draco spread out, flushed and damp and very willing. "You are—and so damned lovely, too, Draco."

"Handsome!" Draco countered, gasping. "I am handsome, damn your eyes. Oh, fuck—get _in_  me already, Harry! You're wasting time! Shag, you cocksucker!"

"Right! Shagging!" Harry complied with moan and a long-suffering eye-roll, and got to the business of the newly wedded with no further ado.


	6. Hermione Likes the Pink Ones, Ronald

"Malfoy," Draco remarked pleasantly, turning a page of a file. He sipped his last swallow of Earl Grey flavoured lightly with lemon and two sugars, returning the cup to saucer with a final flourish.

"Infernal berk," Harry returned, just as pleasantly, and deftly finished constructing another paper aeroplane. They'd quite a collection teetering atop the filing cabinet these days; one of the unexpected benefits of constant  _coitus interruptus_.

"Shall we?" Draco made ready to rise, having finished his perusal. He snapped the file shut and straightened his cravat, which was already perfectly aligned.

"Suppose," Harry groaned, and shot off his plane in a perfect arc 'round his partner's naturally blond head, bonking him on the temple at the finish. It bounced off, nose crumpled like a Snorkack Horn, and drifted gently to the floor. "If we must."

"Oh—to quote, Harry  _Malfoy_ , 'we must, we must," Draco twinkled merrily at his partner and waved a finger at the injured plaything, which thereupon rose to the plateau of the cabinet top and landed neatly, budging aside four others and puffing tiny spurts of excess water vapour. "Duty calls. Come along, then. Don't tarry, Harry."

Harry glared.

* * *

"Hamley's, first thing," Lucius informed his wife. "This morning.  _Then_  we'll visit with the Parkinson's, I promise, darling. Straight after. Even do a meal, if we must."

"Pfft!" Narcissa rarely allowed such an unladylike sound to escape her. It was a measure of her greatly reduced patience that it did now. Her spouse had dragged his heels all morning, despite the buffering effects of two home-brewed Hangover Potions. "Hardly, dear one! Don't forget,  _I_  am intimately acquainted with your habits, Lucius. You'll do a bunk the moment you've an opportunity."

"No, really, Narcissa," Lucius attempted to appear honest, upright and trustworthy. "I shan't. Upon my honour as a Malfoy, I swear. No skiving. Will be sociable, even if it kills me."

"You may, you realize, venture to the Muggle world without me, beloved," Narcissa suggested, over the edge of her  _Quibbler_ , ignoring his empty promises as entirely unworthy of her attention. "I shouldn't need to hold your paw at this age. Go without me. You've the direction."

"Er…no," Lucius had the grace to flush slightly. He shook his head and rolled his eyes in disgust. "Muggles, darling—you know how they affect me. The smell of cheap cologne alone—"

"Infant! Ridiculous, Lucius—really! Do get over yourself and your strange little fancies," Narcissa requested. " _darling_. Cast an Inodourificus and ask Harry to accompany you, then, when he returns home from the Ministry. I'm sure he'll be glad to devote a few hours to his new father. And our dear Draco would approve the two of you spending time together, I'm sure. He does so wish for you to get along."

Lucius choked on his elevensies biscuit. "Hah! No! Never! Over my dead and decomposing body! What a godsawful  _vile_  suggestion, Narcissa—how  _could_ you?"

Narcissa glared.

* * *

 

"Ronald, I like the pink ones," Hermione said. She said this firmly, decisively and in a voice that brooked no argument from mere men. The shopkeeper smiled winningly, scenting Galleons.

"But—but, they're all  _girly_ , Hermione!" her fiancé protested. "And there's my hair— _and_ Gin's. You know they'll clash horribly. Doesn't bear thinking about, really."

" _I_ like the pink ones, Ronald," Hermione glared. " _I'm_  entitled, as the bride." She said this with exactly the air of someone proclaiming themselves the Queen, and indeed, it was true. Hermione was 'the Bride' and, much to his great discomfort, this designation logically cast Ronald Weasley, ordinary chap— interested in Quidditch, fast Muggle autos, PlayWitch centrefolds and butterbeer microbrews— into the terribly frightening role of 'the Groom'.

"And you're hardly wearing them in your hair, are you?" Hermione added tartly, folding her arms over her chest and tapping her foot. "But, as  _I_  am an eminently reasonable person, we will consult one of Draco's Balls before we make the final decision, as you're so reluctant, Ronald. How's that suit you?"

"F-Fine," Ron replied, realizing this tiny allowance to his preferences was as good as he was ever likely to receive, given Hermione's disturbing fondness for pink, a trait she apparently—and also quite disturbingly—shared with Parkinson. They often went to the shops together, the two of them, and returned to the flat half-sodden on Chardonnay and loaded up with scads of lingerie and other garb in hideous shades of pink, ranging from Muggle Pepto-Bismol to a virulent, shrieking hot tangerine-tinged neon. It was a foible of his fiancé's that Ron, quite frankly, could've done without, especially given the Trio's experiences with Umbrage. He would've thought Hermione'd be turned off pink, forever, or even react the same way he always did at the sight of it—queasily—but seemingly it was not so.

 _Women_. Ron shook his head in silent amazement.  _No figuring them, what?_

Ruefully, he wished Harry were with them to commiserate and offer much-needed male sympathy-and then abruptly recalled Harry, if he were actually at Scribner's , burdened with the onerous task of choosing wedding invites, would inevitably be forced to complain of Cho, or Luna, or even Ginny (another deluded lover of that loathsome pink) and that was just  _so_  not on. Ron wasn't listening to Harry talk down his own flesh-and-blood. Worse, Harry might even go so far as to whinge incessantly in return concerning Malfoy's inexplicable affair with the colour purple and being forced to listen to him rabbit on about Malfoy's sartorial secrets in that soppy, fond way he'd developed recently— _that_ would simply destroy the fragile equilibrium of Ron's innards. Altogether.

Men! Who would've thought even a fashion-challenged bloke like Harry would ever give a tinker's damn about his ball-and-chain's appearance? But it was seemingly so, now that he'd gone and Bonded with that bloody Malfoy.

 _Pah!_  Ron huffed to himself, eying the ingratiating shopkeep with a wary orb. No winning for the losing, all 'round!

"Right," he agreed, reluctantly, giving it all up as a Very Bad Job. He shrugged philosophically. "No, don't bother with the Ball, babe. Just do it already, Hermione, if you must. Order the whole lot of them in bloody  _pink_ —in fact, do  _everything_  in bloody pink. Just be aware I'd chose blue, if I'd  _my_  druthers."

Hermione glared.

* * *

 

"I despise these bloody Voldie wannabes," Harry sneered, his lips curling. "They irk me." Draco instantly wished to snog the delectable sneer, but was actively busy with Incarcerating the most current offender from neck to flailing ankle.

"Naturally, Malfoy," he replied, wiggling his fingers at the magical ropes. "You would. You've reason, if anyone does."

Harry snorted and tucked a Portkey into the battered and bloodied (they'd perhaps been a bit rough apprehending the wanker, but he'd deserved it—didn't these people  _ever_  learn?) wannabe's bindings. "Off you go, then, arsehole. The blokes back in Interrogations will see to you."

"No!" protested the hapless black-robed figure, rolling his eyeballs in a clear plea for mercy. That being pretty much all he _could_  move at the moment, other than his gaping mouth: his eyeballs.

"Draco," Harry handily ignored him, and turned to his spouse. "We've time for a long luncheon, don't we? As this one here was so bloody incompetent and practically begged to captured?"

"That we do, Malfoy," Draco's smile practically dripped with salacious anticipation. "And—I must admit- I'm very puckish at the moment. Starving, even." He leered, licking suddenly parched lips in a very meaningful manner.

"Are you now?" Harry cocked both a brow and his cleft chin at Malfoy, tilting them both up flirtatiously. "So soon already after tea break? Well—what did you fancy consuming, then? Curry?"

 _ **Pop!**_  The horrified Death Eater man was ferried away by the Portkey, but not before his frantically rolling eyes bugged out at the sight of two Aurors happily and enthusiastically snogging—in broad daylight, before a horde of passersby, minutes after an arrest.

" _You_ ," Draco replied, when he'd enough air available again to do so. "On the dining room table.  _Now_."

"Mmmm," Harry agreed, dampened lips curving. "That does sound appetizing. But what about your parents, Draco?"

"Sod my parents, Harry," Draco muttered, and chewed possessively on his mate's earlobe. "It's their funeral if they walk in on us, isn't it? Teach 'em a lesson, won't it, for extending their bloody 'drop-by' visit past last weekend? Fucking Nosy Parkers!"

"Ew!" Harry's expression was suitably horrified. "I mean, just  _ew_! Gods, Draco! Are you mad? Your Mum'll hex me dead for messing up the polish, blast it! She bloody well treasures that table! It's an antique!"

"No," Draco replied, slowly tracking his lips down the column of Harry's neck and across his flexing collarbone. He'd his partner's Auror robes half-undone already and was shoving them aside methodically as they impeded his progress. They hit the dirty cobbles with a plop, seconds later. "No, I don't think so, love."

" _Mmm_ —yes, oh! Right there! That's it!" Harry fluttered his lashes closed, succumbing to his beloved's ministrations. Being gnawed on always did do that to him, Draco knew—and leered again in secret pleasure at his daily growing store of such knowledge, toothily. "Er—what? Why do you say that?" he asked, when Malfoy's odd comment finally sank through the haze. "Draco?"

Harry's regulation trousers fell off with another 'plop' and a slight rattle of buttons, but he didn't seem to notice. And Malfoy didn't answer him directly, either, his mouth fully occupied elsewhere.

"Draco…" Harry moaned, giving up his nipples to delicious suction. "Oh, Draco!"

"Harry," Malfoy muttered absentmindedly, still gnawing, and then proceeded to snog Harry nearly blind, weaving his silenced tongue and roving fingers into a breath-taking spell of sensual enchantment, right there at the corner of Diagon and Knockturn, crowding them both into the battered brick wall he'd deliberately maneuvered his partner up against.

"Oh,  _Harry_ …"

_Pop!_

The bemused crowd of onlookers and passersby, who'd innocently gathered to view the exciting duel between the Aurors and the DE wannabe, stared at the still-pulsating spot where they'd just been and glared frostily. Some huffed their irritation and disapprobation: PDA between uniformed officers of the Ministry's Auror department was  _not_  exactly approved of, even now.

What a bloody shocker! It oughtn't to be allowed!


	7. The Obligatory Angsty Bit

The 20 standard answers on a Magic 8-Ball are:

● As I see it, yes

● It is certain

● It is decidedly so

● Most likely

● Outlook good

● Signs point to yes

● Without a doubt

● Yes

● Yes - definitely

● You may rely on it

● Reply hazy, try again

● Ask again later

● Better not tell you now

● Cannot predict now

● Concentrate and ask again

● Don't count on it

● My reply is no

● My sources say no

● Outlook not so good

● Very doubtful

**Without a doubt**.

"And the Bakelite—that Muggle plasticky substance—the purchase of the factory in China has been successfully concluded? All stocks are transferred?"

**You may rely on it**. Draco's Muggle Ball all but nodded purposefully. Draco smiled, satisfied.

"Then there's really only the marketing aspect left. And I do approve of the coloured samples—Pans adores her pink one, Harry."

**Yes – definitely**. The Ball commented, idly.  **It is decidedly so**.

"That's fine, love," Harry nodded absently.

"I'd imagine Zabini can take care of establishing the focus group in the States for a quick survey," Draco tapped his chin thoughtfully with his wand and mused aloud. Harry nodded, his head deep in the production statistics for Zambibian Naugahyde herds and their impact on Bulgarian domestic dragon breeding in re the issue of pleather. He issued a slight 'hmm'-ing noise in deference to his partner, but it was clear his attention was claimed elsewhere.

"We've lavender, pink, white now and I'm considering blue and green, Harry. D'you have any preferences? And should we adjust the hue of the liquid? Have it colour-coordinated to match the casing?"

**Don't count on it**. The Ball's white floaty triangle spun wildly in silent agitation.  **Outlook not so good**.

"What?" Harry raised his shaggy head at that—past time for a visit to Dino, Draco decided, regarding the overgrown mass fondly—"What?" he demanded again, and stared fixedly at Draco as if he were an alien, or possibly from even another dimension. "What a fecking poncy idea, Draco. Good gods! This is business we're talking, not fashion, you know. Rein yourself in, git."

Draco smirked. "Speaking of, Harry…"

Draco rose to his full and elegant height, setting his Ball and wand down with deliberate care, and stalked over to the paper-strewn desk where Harry sat, a flickering Muggle screen similar to their PlasMagick™ telly's before him, flowing what looked remarkably like the concatenations of Arithromancy's Impossible Pie endlessly in white text across it. He crouched down with feline grace, a smile ever so slowly raising itself on his perfectly firm, moist lips, wax on dark chocolate, and used his broad shoulders to budge Harry's knees apart.

"How about, love, we turn the tables, as it were?" he drawled. "I do a little riding and you see if you can manage to keep a clear head throughout. We'll make it a wager, even. Test it to see which of us is better at this 'reining in' idea of yours."

Hands on Harry's flies, he peered up, regarding Harry through the thicket of pale lashes that normally guarded his pale, clear eyes. Harry, in turn, regarded him curiously, and swiveled a bit on his spinny chair, the one he'd purchased mail order from that Wizarding 'DIY' shop, WIZKEA. He edged forward on the thin cushion, spreading his knees farther once Draco had his trousers and pants loosened and comfortably shimmied down to his calves, and grinned in return, eyes glinting.

"A wager?" Harry asked softly, now entirely captivated by the sight of Malfoy kneeling before him, to the detriment of scrolling slices of numerical PIE. "And the prize, Malfoy?"

"Your solemn swear to use your proper surname, of course,  _Malfoy_ —in public, and often, and with all the pride and deference it deserves," Draco replied. The tip of his agile tongue just touched the rim of Harry's cockhead. He licked daintily at the half-firm bulk, as if it were a boiled sweet, freshly unwrapped. "As is only proper."

"And the rules of this wager you propose—they are?" Harry asked, scooching his arsecheeks over the coarse black material covering the cushion, so as to shove more of his valiantly eager dick into his spouse's willing mouth. It didn't seem to bother Harry in the slightest that this action would inevitably reduce Malfoy's ability to enunciate—or even communicate at all, really; if anything, he sucked in a harsh breath in anticipation of the sloppy sounds of communal, connubial silence. Words, Harry'd found recently, weren't always necessary in the fine art of communication with one's beloved. "I'd need to know all the details before I could see my way to agreeing to anything, you realize."

"Mngh!" Draco nodded equably enough, and drew his sleek head back, leaving his pursed lips just resting on the swollen round of flesh. Salt slick dampened them, and he licked Harry's slit quickly—absentmindedly—to prevent it from trailing down and spotting Harry's rumpled trousers. Or his own. "Of course you do, Harry. Only fair, isn't it? I understand that."

Harry nodded, pleased, and leant forward, partly to bury his hands in Malfoy's hair; partly to inch his chair forward another squeaky wheel revolution, bobbing his cockhead insistently across Malfoy's primly pursed pink lips, bonking his superior beak of a Norman nose. "Absolutely. Do go on with your proposal," he invited huskily. 'I admit I'm intrigued, Malfoy."

"Well, the way I see it," Malfoy twinkled affably at him, "it's a matter of self-discipline. You fail miserably, Harry, at maintaining decorum in the face of your more physical urges. Witness my effect upon you."

"Indeed?" Harry raised his brows skeptically. "Your evidence?"

Draco grinned evilly, twinkle eradicated. "Point one: it took just the few simple snogs to convince you I wasn't such a bad sort, didn't it? Despite the fact I spent all that time deliberately winding you up on a daily basis—you let it all go by the wayside in exchange for some tongue action."

Harry frowned at him, but didn't protest.

"Point two," Draco continued, "also in  _my_  favour, naturally: I only had to shag you once to have you enthralled, Harry Potter. Once, by all that's holy. You'd have done any damned thing I asked of you after that—admit it. Marry me, even—which you  _did_  do, shortly thereafter. Willingly."

"Hmmm," Harry neither agreed nor disagreed with any of this, but he did bob his chin in understanding of the facts as presented, not bothering to debate. "Anything else to this wager? Is there a real plan of action or do we just go at it like hares and see who makes whom cum first? Or is it –harder?"

" _I_  will make you come first, Potter," Malfoy stated, all his centuries-bred arrogance rising to the fore. "And harder, as you so commonly term it. Naturally. Point three: you'll bloody beg of me to allow you to do so."

"By what means, Malfoy?" Harry's query was very dry. He waggled his cock against Draco's thinned lips again and left a smear of stickiness after—not dry at all, that. Draco swallowed, perhaps not as composed as he let on. His own trousers had become horridly constrictive below his robes. "What means," Harry asked again, to clarify, "do you chose to employ in engineering my downfall? What  _are_  your chosen weapons, git?"

Draco smiled deliciously and gulped in Harry's dick with no further demur, nimbly working his throbbing throat around it, tonguing the spongy vesicles and exerting pressure just the way he knew Harry liked it.

"Shite!" Harry muttered, gasping faintly, and gripped Draco's scalp with very firm hands. He reared back, full force, ripping his dick from Malfoy's supercilious face with a dribbling 'pop!' and causing the chair to roll away and thump against the legs of his desk. "No  _fair_ , Malfoy!" he protested, "we've not settled all the details yet! You can't just begin without me."

Draco's red mouth took on a moue of annoyance. "Really, Harry, I was merely providing you a free sample. You like those, don't you? When you're deep into your product research and making decisions about future suppliers? Take a damper, do. Don't be so tetchy about this—it's only just a friendly bet."

"You!" Harry exclaimed, snorting. He took his hands back from his husband's hair and placed them protectively over his groin. "Are not to be considered 'friendly',  _ever_. Calculating, manipulative and the most gorgeous arse of my acquaintance— _yes_. 'Friendly'? No! Now-details, Malfoy, if you please— _now,_ I say. No more joking about and playing games with me. Exactly what're you planning to do to my person to make me cum, and what do  _I_ have to do in return in order to eradicate this stupid notion of yours from your ever-so-blond brain? Because I don't really fancy becoming known as a dratted Malfoy and you're well aware of it, git—and my reasons. No offense."

" _I_ fancy it, Harry," Draco's handsome face resolved itself into an expression of great seriousness. He stared up at Harry with a challenging quirk on his wet, scarlet lips. " _I_ would prefer it be proclaimed far and wide that you're a Malfoy, to be brutally honest, and  _not_  limited to two measly hundred-word notises in the larger papers." He swallowed, obviously straining to choose his words. "For Merlin's sake, Harry, I don't think even a quarter of the Wizarding world even realizes we're an item yet, much less Bonded!" he exclaimed, annoyance bursting out him, nonetheless. "You can't allow it go on like this, you realize," he went on, gathering his patience back up by the scraps. "Someone's bound to try another one of those stupid Love Potions on you—or worse. Don't forget, Vane's a bloody psycho and in need of therapy—and there's more where she came from! And I'll  _not_ have it," Draco stated, steel hardening is voice. "It's an arsed-up situation from the get-go—people not knowing about us—and one that can be easily rectified—if you'll just the do the right thing."

"Malfoy, look," Harry attempted to pierce Draco's swelling ire with sweet reason. "It's not a big deal to me whether they know or don't know—in fact, I'd rather they didn't—"

"Ashamed of me, Harry?" Draco looked daggers at him, scowling. The bulge in his trousers had noticeably declined.

"No!" Harry protested. "By no means! More like the other way 'round, Draco— _you_  should be ashamed of me, if anything! I'm hardly a credit to you or your family—or so your ever-so-proper Malfoy papa insists on informing me, every fucking opportunity! I'd of thought you'd  _want_  to keep our relationship on the QT, if anything—besides, we're more effective as partners, business and Auror, Draco, if no one knows of the exact relationship," he offered, trying a different tact. "It's so much safer—and  _I_ , for or one, am all for safety! We take enough risks as it is, and  _you_ , too, can be held hostage for ransom, Malfoy. You, too, can be drugged with Amortentia." Harry stuck a pleading hand out, resting it on his partner's shoulder. "Think on it, love. I know you'll agree with me—if you'll just hold up for two bloody seconds and  _think_!"

"I agree with _nothing_  you've just said, Harry!" Draco stormed, rising, Harry's hand going flying. He began to pace, his trousers still bulging with the last of his boner. "Never! That's fucking bullshite of the highest degree! Bullshite!"

"The fact remains, Draco," Harry said firmly, not budging an inch, but cautiously watching his partner stomp about the confines of the working Study at an ever faster speed of revolution, "that we are both much safer and more effective as 'Potter' and 'Malfoy'. Admit it once and for all and be done with this, Draco. And  _please_  suck me—I'm fucking  _dying_ here!"

"No!" Draco burst out, snatching up the Ball and his wand at the turn of a heel. He spun about, robes flapping. "Incarcerous, Harry! Sit there at your fucking monocle telly screen and  _think_  about what you've just said to me, won't you? And cogitate on something far more to the point than fucking  _safety_  while you're at it! I'll be back in an hour, damn it—"

"Draco! Be reasonable!" Harry yelled, struggling madly. His wand was just out of reach.

" _Fuck_ your 'reasonable' with a big, pointy stick, Potter! You try being understanding for once!" Draco stormed, his eyes flashing, only just pausing at the doorway. "If you even can!"

"Draco, please," Harry tried again, in a desperate effort to retrieve the situation. "I'm sorry; I just meant we should-"

His partner took a deep cleansing breath, but did not turn back.

"As I was saying," he replied, evenly, addressing the doorknob, "I'll return in an hour and we can discuss this in a more reasonable manner—"

"Draco—I've got to these purchase orders turned in before ten or they won't fulfill them!" Harry interjected, attempting to use the famous Malfoy head for business as a thumb in the dyke of his spouse's furious ire.

"Silencio!" Draco snapped, blinking fast and hard at the innocent piece of brass hardware swimming across his vision. "There  _are_  more important things than mere Galleons or cotton wool swaddlings or—or  _your_ damnable pride, Harry Malfoy! Just think on it, will you? Use your fucking head for more than a place to prop that atrocious hair of yours! Is  _that_  too much to ask of you?"

He pivoted sharply to one side, the wooden frame of the door creaking slightly beneath the clenching pressure of his fingertips just before he released it. Harry couldn't see the whole of Draco's face, bound as he was so tightly to his chair, but he heard the slight—very slight—hitch of a not-quite-contained sob in Draco's dangerously thin veneer of a barely reasonable timbre—loud and clear, like a warning siren. And the worrisome lines that were suddenly etched across the unearthly pulchritude the Malfoy clan was known for—Harry saw them, noted them for what they were, and remembered in excruciatingly vivid detail soothing them away, just that same morning, when his love had suffered through one of his increasingly rare nightmares.

Harry winced; opened his mouth to somehow fix up what he'd unintentionally bollixed—and remembered abruptly he was Silenced.

"If you  _do_  love me," Draco muttered bleakly, just before the inevitable slam that would shake the plaster. "Which  _I_ nowhave more than sufficient cause to doubt, Harry—thanks ever so."

A bitter fug settled about the stifling confines of their shared Study after the door closed—with a 'snick', not a slam, oddly. Harry regarded his knees, tightly bound with hempen ropes, and knew he'd fucked himself well and good—this time. He wiggled his fingers, doing a little wandless magic, and regained his ability to speak. Settling back into the ropes, he grimaced. His cock bobbed forlornly, abandoned.

"Harry Malfoy," he who was still—and formerly—known as 'Harry Potter' mumbled to the empty room, trying the syllables out for size. "Harry Potter  _Malfoy_ ," he said again, a little louder, and with more conviction. "Not so bad, really— _ugh_! What  _am_  I thinking?"


	8. Making It All Better

 

**Most likely.** That was what the Ball said, when he'd sneaked a peek at it, last night at dinner.

Lucius chortled merrily. Hamleys it was—at long last!

"Narcissa! Darling, dearest girl!" he bellowed, his joie de vivre nearly visible in the sunny Breakfast Room. "My love!"

The boys—as his wife referred to them—had long since gone off to the Ministry, to do their derring-do voodoo as magical crime fighters. The Manor was quiet and peaceful, and Lucius relished a horizon free of social luncheons with fusty Wizarding Boomer types (like themselves), in which dry cress sandwiches, turtle soup and poor excuses for a decent sherry would be consumed over days-old gossip concerning the activities of their various spawn.

He, Lucius, abhorred gossip—unless it was useful. It had proven that, actually, as he'd kept his ear to the ground recently in re the opportunities his compatriots were investing in, and the vision of the beauteous black shiny Muggle Eight Ball had arisen more than once.

Nott, that old fox, had just the day before purchased shares in the rapidly expanding Muggle-owned company, as had the senior Parkinsons. Even curmudgeonly, ancient Aloysius MacGregor, wily mother's ill-got beget that he was and cousin to the Malfoys on his father's mother's side, had bought in for a cool thousand. The Magic Eight Ball Co., Ltd. was a growing, healthy concern and Lucius just couldn't wait to get his hands on a sizeable piece of the action—literally and figuratively.

Because, first off and foremost, he wanted a Ball of his very own. And, if he wasn't going to manage to persuade his stubborn son-and-heir (that hopeless, hapless Potter sycophant!) to give his Ball up, then Lucius would (gasp!) have to purchase one for himself. At a Muggle shop. In a Muggle place. And it would be sold to him by (eep!) bloody Muggles!

But—and this was a large and important 'but'—this was indeed possible for a Wizard of his age and experience and not too terribly difficult, either, provided his lovely wife was there to help him sort out the London Tubeways and safe Apparation points. And also to bring along some of the Muggle money, which Lucius never carried, as it was coarse, plebian, and fiddly, and he preferred good old reliable Galleons, thank you. Or cheques.

Regency Street, London. Right. Large building, impressive facade; can't possibly miss it. Yes! Time to be off, before someone unwanted dropped by for yet another unannounced call. Time was a wasting!

"Narcissa!" he trilled again, raising his volume just a touch with the aid of Sonorous, "where are you? It's time to go—oh!"

Truly, it was looking to be a bright and satisfactory morning, all 'round.

* * *

"…and don't think resolving our minor disagreements with blowjobs will be effective every single time, Harry," Draco was in the midst of berating his beloved. "You rely far too much on your charm and your reputation, Mister Malfoy, and—mark my words—you'll get your comeuppance if you don't look sharp!"

"Yes, love," Harry replied peaceably. "I'm sure I will."

"My point yesterday was perfectly valid, Harry," Draco paced in the tiny space, stomping his boot heels on the tile in cadence to the measured clip of his diatribe, and Harry found himself folding his latest plane in accordance to the sultry beat. It was like a conga, 'cept that Draco was in a snit, and not likely to sweep Harry off dancing—which he had done, quite recently, in Paris, and very romantic it had been, too.

"You  _are_  a Malfoy and as such, you must needs be addressed that way, Harry," Draco huffed. "Publicly."

"Yes, dear."

Harry sighed happily, and continued on with his folding, oblivious to Draco's tiny frown. He'd a brilliant idea over the weekend as to how to streamline the ailerons and struts and was therefore quite invested in this new model plane of his. Plus, he was soothed by the clean cool tones of his spouse's syllables, rattling on about some such or another of his many faults and flaws, and his prick was lying lazily against his inner thigh, totally replete in satisfaction, having had the innards practically sucked out of it by a genuine Malfoy just the half-hour previous.

"And I don't see why you must needs force me to continually dare you over this matter, Harry," Draco went on, turning sharply. "It's not as though you didn't choose your lot in the first place—Bonding with me, taking on my name—you should be bloody proud of it! It's a fine old name, mine, and for centuries we've-"

"That I did," Harry interjected, sweetly, never raising his eyes from his task. "And I'd never choose differently, Malfoy. Believe me."

Draco sighed and dropped a fond kiss on Harry's hair in passing, before resuming his eternal pace.

"Good job, Potter," he muttered. "Got something right, at least. Now, there's the matter of our paperwork—"

So what if he had to go by 'Harry Malfoy' for a day or two, as per the terms of the wager he'd lost yesterday to Draco; what was the problem with that? No big deal, really. And-, with any sort of luck, no one would notice, as they were buggering off to Dubai by Portkey straight after the weekly Auror staff luncheon meeting, and who gave a flying fuck how they addressed him in Dubai?

He didn't know anyone in Dubai, and no one knew him.

Delighted, Harry fiddled with the nose cone, adjusting it, half an ear cocked in his spouse's direction.

"At least your passport is now finally corrected," Draco was rambling, "name-wise, Harry—and please don't tell me you forgot to obtain our working visas from the Embassy?" Draco snapped, robes slapping his long legs in sharp contrapoint. "And the warrant from the Unspeakables? We'll need both in hand when we go."

"No, love, I didn't," Harry replied. "All in order, they are." He tapped the manila folder lying front and centre on his messy desk. "Right here."

"Oh, very good, Harry," Draco praised him, and swung close enough in his circuit to lick Harry's ear. He kept his pale blond head close by when he was finished with that and dropped his voice to an inviting murmur. "You're not completely incompetent, then, Harry Malfoy. I knew I'd not totally fucked up, wedding your contrary arse. So, er, speaking of—and as we're officially newlyweds, still—time for another round of the connubial nasty before the meeting, d'you reckon?"

"Oh—I think we could manage a quickie, Malfoy," Harry glanced up briefly, eyes sparkling. "Just let me finish up this one fold here, yeah? I'd really like this one to fly."

"Prat," Draco dropped his sharp, pointy chin on Harry's shoulder and draped the rest of his lean body against Harry's back, a warm solid human blanket that never seemed to be very far away. "Ever the childish one, you. Always with the toys."

"Uh-huh," Harry grinned, happily envisioning a fast and productive stop in the stairwell between the Auror offices and the conference room used for their weekly staff meetings. Five minutes of intensive wall time should do them nicely, he decided, judging by the rapid pant of Draco's hot breath in his ear. It certainly wouldn't take much longer than that!

"I adore toys, Draco—you know that, don't you?" he added, fluttering his lashes in silent invitation. "Always have."

"Send it off then, love, so we can be about shagging," Draco directed tersely, with rather more serious intent than previously, and allowed a curious hand to stray into Harry's red-robed lap. Which stirred, instantly, with interest. "Let's see how it goes."

"Oh, yes, Draco," Harry agreed fervently, shifting restlessly. "Let's do that," he added, when the hand palmed his cock, fondling it with purpose. His ear was swiped once more, by a tongue hot as all of Hell's Inner Circles.

"Ummm…" he groaned, spreading his thighs even as he frantically lined up parchment edges. "Draco!"

Life was really rather brilliant, Harry concluded, sticking his own tongue between his teeth as he diligently—desperately!—folded the final flap and sent his latest aeroplane sailing into an elegant arc at last. Even though Draco never, ever let up about this silly 'being a Malfoy' business, the git.

"And she's off!" he shouted triumphantly, as the plane flew straight and true. "There she go-ummphh!" His cry was muffled instantly by a determined Seeker's mouth.

Even though Draco kept Harry's responsive body at a constant near-boiling state, shagging him and being shagged by him every opportunity they could possibly engineer.

"Lovely, Harry," Draco whispered against Harry's gathered nipple, having moved on like bloody quicksilver to other points of interest. He'd shifted about and was now straddling Harry's avidly curious groin. "So beautiful."

Despite unfortunate in-laws, work and side hobbies involving Muggle venture capital and Muggle magic.

Harry shuddered with delight under Draco's roving hands and mouth, and wondered if he'd even manage to make it to the targeted stairwell in his current drugged and swollen state. Nothing wrong with the wall of their cubicle, either. Or his chair.

Floors were excellent choices, too.

"Harry Malfoy," Draco whispered, nuzzling Harry's nape, " _my_  Harry Malfoy." He nipped his way down Harry's chest, where his Auror robes were now mysteriously gaping open. "Mine."

"Oh, gods, Draco!"

By Merlin, there were far worse things in the world than  _that_.


	9. Muggle Hades

Lucius was presently in Hades. _Muggle_ Hades.

There were squealing midgets; there were harried Muggles, hither and yon. There were—and this was the one bright ray of glorious sunshine in an otherwise dreary landscape—toys. More playthings than one middle-aged Wizard could possibly manage to fiddle with in a series of lifetimes: turn on, adjust, rearrange or or even imagine. Seven whole floors of them—of toys that lit up with bright flashing Muggle fairies; of toys that were—er, ah—oddly cuddly and stuffed; of toys that one could perch upon and gad about; of toys that were meant to be taken apart and reassembled in endless variations. A huge conglomeration of childish ephemera that ranged from massive and constructed of a foreign, shiny-smooth material in a variety of neon colours to miniscule, dainty and pointy-sharp and made of felt or plush or polyester—prickly ones, that were designed to find one's naked foot, as well, which were no doubt painful to tread upon in a darkened room. Toys that emitted noises ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, and toys that were entirely incomprehensible to a Wizard, decorated as they were with strange ideograms and hieroglyphs. Toys, toys, toys.

Useful, silly, educational, sublime—Hamley's was a Heaven upon earth in that respect, granted.

But, Lucius thought, (and it was quite a large 'but'), there were still the screaming smallish persons who were sticky and tearing about like so many miniature whirling dervishes, and there were also the Muggly parents of same: sad, put-upon creatures, all with similar hangdog expressions and the hunched shoulders of utter spiritual defeat, clutching desperately at grubby little hands and also to their wallets or purses, and talking, talking endlessly. They jabbered on about 'moderation in purchasing' and 'breakage of fragile items' and even the 'potential of sharing with siblings'. They babbled of 'gifting to other sprogs for special occasions' and of 'how Junior or Little Missy might be lucky enough to receive the same for  _their_ birthdays', nonstop through the little horrors sullen tears and gusty tantrums, wistful gazes and shrieking fits of enthusiasm. Poor Muggles.

All this gabble fell mostly on deaf ears, or so Lucius noted, from his high mental elevation: the wee Muggles continued their squirming, shrieking and running unabated, and apparently were actually actively  _encouraged_  by the sight of one another acting unreasonably. It was a brilliant Saturday morning, and thus it seemed the adult and elder London Muggles had been set free of their usual restraints of work and school. They were out and about with a vengeance to purchase, too, from what Lucius could see. Hamley's was a veritable ocean of busy bodies, and he was the ultimate stranger in the strange land. A Wizard very, very far (light years!) away from his familiar Diagon.

Lucius, unsurprisingly, was currently possessed of the sick headache, newly acquired. Narcissa had insisted on lingering in the amply stocked Children's Garb section, Ages 0 thu' 6 Months, cooing like a dove over layettes and ridiculously small jumpers, and thus he was bereft of his accustomed prop and support in life's tribulations. A lone older male Wizard, his elegant garb hastily Transfigured to an approximation of trendy age-appropriate Mugglewear (ew!), his walking stick disguised as fountain pen (that had been his wife's smart idea; she who claimed to have little knowledge of Muggle customs, but who'd proven surprisingly adept at blending in with them, given what she presently wearing), he was entirely withouta clue and cast blithely unto the rough seas of the boggling enormous Toys For All Ages section  _sans_  any sort of life raft or able steerage.

It was a bloody unconscionable thing for his Cissy to inflict on a Wizard of his years and stern reputation. What if he really  _did_  despise Muggles as much as his ex-Lord had? He'd be having a field day in Hamley's, AKing every man, woman and child in sight!

Thank Merlin this wasn't the case. Lucius—if he could claim no other redeeming feature to his personality (patently untrue, as he claimed many)—was sincere in his vociferous recanting of Voldemort's 'Kill 'em all!' credo. The Muggles could be allowed to live; they weren't all that bad, considering, and some of them were rather bloody useful. Potter was one of those latter ones—the useful sort, as much as Lucius hated to admit it.

Really, really hated to admit it.

Had to admit it, as he'd never seen his own boy happier or more relaxed. Potter was good for Draco; the best, the little prat.

Almost—but not really—he wished wistfully for the knowledgeable presence of his brand-new son-in-law, the Scarred One, if only for translation purposes. He did not  _speak_  Muggle, Lucius. He'd no real desire to learn, either, unless it was to discuss vintages with well-versed sommeliers. And to provide succinct directions and instructions for obtaining what he wished for, of course, so that he'd receive it in a timely fashion. Speaking of…

"Miss! Pardon, Miss!" Lucius exclaimed both desperately and loudly (using a subtle Sonorus), finally spying a youngish female person who had a vaguely official air, apparently moored to a semi-raised podium. "I require assistance here, immediately! I'm in need of what you refer to as an 'Magic Eight Ball', though of course, it's not actually Magic at all, really, but still, I wish to have one—"

"Excuse  _me_ , sir," the female interrupted Lucius's monologue sharply, with a semi-polite stare. She was all the while operating a machine of some sort which chattered and dinged, and had a line of various disgruntled Muggles gathered before it. "As soon as I'm finished with these clients—who were  _all_ here before  _you_ were, sir—I'll be glad to be of service. You'll have to wait your turn, though." She turned away and that was that.

"'Wait my turn'. Ah," Lucius enunciated slowly, at a complete loss as to how to do  _that_. "I see."

He didn't see, not at all. He was used to people jumping hoops to serve him. This woman exhibited absolutely no inclination to do that and—casting a quick glance about him—Lucius could spy no other similarly garbed Muggle who might be dragooned into assisting him right that moment. That, in itself, was preposterous—ridiculous, even. It was horrendously busy on this particular floor of Hamley's and it appeared the poor Muggle lady operating the odd machine had been abandoned by her fellow working Muggles without any sort of proper back-up.

_Hah!_  Lucius exclaimed triumphantly, albeit only to himself. This was yet another reason why Wizarding shops were so much the better than the Muggle version!

"Right, yes." Off-track, Lucius preened a bit, immensely proud of his heritage—and then ceased, intercepting any number of glares from Muggle parents, each of them juggling far too many items in their arms whilst corralling the squeaky smaller ones. Clearly, they could care less about his pride as a Wizard. "Oh, yes…I  _do_ see."

Well, perhaps he did, rather, Lucius allowed.

It  _was_  very crowded here in Toys For All Ages, and the queue at the cashier's was quite serpentine and long. He'd been quietly entertaining the notion of simply Imperius'ing the unsuspecting Muggle wench into aiding him in locating his desired item for purchase. A practical enough solution, really—and it would solve his problem—but very highly noticeable.

On second thought, it wouldn't do, though, to cause a fuss in Hamley's. He was still, officially, an exile to the British Wizarding community. If he disturbed the Muggles by exercising any of his considerable arsenal of mind-altering incantations on them, the Ministry would be alerted and then there would be Hades to pay, what with having to bribe his way out of the newspapers—and out of a gaol cell at the local lock-up, likely—or, worse yet, Azkaban! A Muggle magical device, no matter how intriguing, was simply not worth that.

No, the watchword of the day was surely 'caution'. Nay, 'circumspection', even.

Lucius was no stranger to such discretion. He'd managed to fool rather a large body of interested and official persons as to his true agenda for an extended period of time, at least twice now, on the official record. He was well-versed in the fine art of appearances, he. If the Muggles mustn't suspect there was a powerful ex-Dark Wizard in their midst, then he was the man to do it.

Squaring his shoulders in silent resignation and keeping careful hold of his precious fountain pen (fortunately capped), Lucius nodded blandly at the highly unhelpful female and began a slow stroll about the crowded aisles, swishing the tails of his Muggle sportcoat. The resultant tiny billow was highly unsatisfactory. Lucius heaved a hugely loud and long-suffering sigh, his fourth of the quarter-hour. Somewhere in this Salazar-forsaken conglomeration of childish paraphernalia was a Muggle Magic Eight Ball for purchase and he— _he_  was on a mission to obtain it for his very own.

And  _wouldn't_  be thwarted.

* * *

"Draco," Harry looked up from the heavy leather glove he was lacing. "Did you, by any chance, follow through on what we discussed with regards to your so-delightful pater familias?"

"Hmm, Harry?" Harry's spouse had two similar-yet-not brooms pulled down from the immensely long rack and was taking turns sighting down each of them, checking for warpage and splinters. "What are you saying regards my estimable parent?"

" _Did_  you," Harry repeated himself yet again, with a long-suffering sigh which (had he but known it) was the exact twin to his awful father-in-law's heavy exhalation, off in the bowels of Hamley's. Draco always accused Harry of being easily distractible, but the reverse was true, really. It was Draco who'd developed a sort of selective hearing, quite similar to his father's, at least in his newlywed spouse's opinion. Well, Harry decided, he'd his own ways of dealing with  _that_ , all learnt at Hermione's knee. Repeated nagging, for one. "Or did you  _not_  Charm your father? As we spoke of? The other day? You said you would, remember?"

"Hum?" Draco was now hefting the brooms, one in each hand, tossing them lightly up a foot or two and catching them. "Which one's better today, d'you think? The Caprice or the Traveller? Is there much wind to contend with, Harry?"

" _Draco_ ," Harry repeated, even more insistently. " _Did_  you cast that Occulur Deficiency spell on your father? Or  _not_?"

"Oh!" Draco exclaimed, having moved on to examining bristle conditions. He'd the one broom tucked up under his armpit, and was somewhat awkwardly juggling the other, peering at the woven webbing that attached them. "Right, of course. Yes, Harry. Of course I did."

Harry, having finished his glove lacing, turned his entire attention on his abstracted companion. "Draco. Are you  _positive_?"

"Ah?" Draco had meanwhile switched out the brooms and was running a speculative forefinger over the Caprice's bristles, which were clipped close in the Italian style. It was the smaller broom, but quite perky, and a good choice for a fast run to the coast. "Erm, what's that, Harry?"

"Draco!" Harry shouted. "Draco Malfoy, you arse! Listen to me! Pay attention!"

Draco jumped, startled, and only just caught the Traveller before it clattered to the tile floor of the Broom Shed. Well, more a Broom  _Palace_ , Harry often thought, but given the Malfoy penchant for excess, it should be expected that they would store their vast collection of brooms in a space larger than most Muggle dwellings.

"Potter, darling!" Malfoy gasped. "What? Whatever d'you want? Why the feck are you yelping at me? I'm a bit preoccupied here; can't you see?"

* * *

 

Seven floors of toys and not one single Muggle Eight Ball to be had—not anywhere. Lucius simply could believe it.

"I simply cannot believe this outrage, Cissy," he remarked to his lovely wife, who'd finally turned up in Board Games after a half-hour gone entirely MIA, with a dragooned salesperson dogging her Prada heels, bearing all her many shopping bags.  _She'd_  evidently had a successful morning, but Lucius had not, and this was cruelly wearing to his male expectations of quick conquest and rapid victory. "Potter  _said_ —I was certain he said  _Hamley's_. Did he not, darling? You were sitting right there when he said Hamley's, weren't you? It's not some other Muggle toy shop, is it?"

"Of course I was, love," Narcissa murmured soothingly. "Oh, thank you, dear," she said to the female help, still grimly trotting after them as they made their way from the main entrance and down the crowded street. "My husband will take them now; won't you, beloved?"

"But of course, dear one," Lucius swept the bags away from the Muggle young person and pressed a Galleon discreetly into her palm. She stared at it for a long moment, obviously perplexed, and then shrugged in mild, bovine confusion, turning away and bobbing a mumbling 'Thank you, sir!' "Shall we be off home, then, darling?"

"And did  _not_  Potter say  _Hamley's_ , Cissy?" Lucius repeated the question yet again, being still appalled, as they made their inconspicuous way 'round the nearby corner, fetching up in a much less trafficked alleyway. The delivery lorries parked there were fortunately unoccupied. "Specifically? Yet they had not a single one of the Eight Balls on their shelves. Not one! Odd, that—very! I'd have thought the Muggles would be very interested in obtaining them. The boys did say they were popular with the younger set."

"Yes, darling. Very odd," Narcissa nodded, though her husband didn't catch the knowing gleam in her pale blue eyes. "Perhaps a different shop might have one. Shall we ask our sons over luncheon?"

"Yes," Lucius replied, firmly, a determined look in his silvery gaze, and spared not a thought to protesting the normally highly incendiary phrase 'our sons'. "I find this only feeds my interest in this project, Cissy. Now I really  _must_  obtain one. It leads one to think, doesn't it? They must be very rare indeed for the Muggles to keep them so well hidden."

Lucius had, in fact, been thwarted. He also had a wad of hot pink, gooey Muggle chewing gum stuck to the heel of his hundred Galleon Italian-made loafer, but he didn't notice that till much, much later—fortunately.

* * *

" _Darling_ ," Harry parroted in turn, mocking with all the blackest sarcasm he could possibly muster. "Malfoy, my sweetest, dearest chap, I must warn you. You'll be preoccupied with finding a way to comfortably perch on that broomstick when I'm done with you  _if_  you don't. Pay. Attention. To. Me. Right. This.  _Instant_! Now—answer my question, please, or I'll spank you. I need to know about your father. What did you do to him, exactly?"

"Ah!" Draco's eyes lit up, and Harry was finally treated to full intensity of Draco Malfoy's quite considerable  _attention_. It was like having a thousand watts of brilliant candlepower trained upon him, all at once—in searchlight fashion. Quite disarmingly intimidating Malfoy could be, when he so chose. Fortunately, Harry was made of sterner stuff. He merely glared intently at his recalcitrant spouse, and managed not to tap his shoe on the tiled floor in a shrewish, petty manner.

"Spanking, Harry?" Draco exclaimed, delighted, veering off instantly to the subject that preoccupied him most when all other items were in process of being equal: shagging, all variations, with Harry Potter Malfoy. "How might I go about earning the pleasure of that, my love? D'you want to chase me? Or…shall I chase you?" he drawled, half-closing his eyelids in a most seductive manner.

"Argggh!" Harry threw his hands up, finally stomping that petulant foot despite his best intentions. "My  _gods_ , Draco! You're worse than any child, you know that? Look—just tell me you did it, alright? Tell me you've Charmed him and it's all taken care of, so I won't worry! Answer the bloody question, damn it!"

"Yes, Harry? How can I help you?" Draco trilled, patently oblivious and playful, cocking his pointy chin. Draco Malfoy doing 'innocent' was strangely adorable, Harry admitted, but also completely unbelievable. He scowled and refused to be lead astray by all this wanton charm being poured over his person. Bloody butterboat. Stupid Malfoy!

"You had a question, I assume?" Draco batted his eyelashes. "Did I do what, then, to whom?"

"Yeeeesss," Harry answered slowly. "I did, as it happens, have this one, single, crucial question. Draco, have you or have you not cast that Charm upon your father," Harry growled, "so he'll be unable to acquire an Eight Ball from any shop that sells them? Yes or no, Draco?"

"Oh, is that all?" Malfoy traded out the Caprice broom for the Traveller and returned to his examination of twig condition. "Yes. Yes, I have, Harry. Just said so, didn't I? Should've asked me that sooner if you wanted to know so badly; would've told you that right off."

"Are you certain of that?"

"Absolutely. Did it right after we discussed it, actually. Mum can still see them, Father cannot. Easy-peasy, puddin' and pie, and he never even noticed me incanting it." Harry's husband deftly popped the Caprice back into its slot and ran a palm down the length of the longer English model's stick. "Bit too much brandy after dinner last night, m'dad had. I really must consult with Mum about his increasing consumption. Bad for his digestion, all that Muggle alcohol. Hmm, this one's nice and sturdy, Harry. I do believe I'll go with it, today."

"Good," Harry replied shortly. He could give a fuck about his father-in-law's digestion—or the state of his likely suffering liver. He took up his own tried and trusty Firebolt, a newer version of an old reliable marque, and brandished it at his spouse. "I won't worry then."

"Worry about what, lovely Harry?" Draco was still coming off as artless, the sod; Harry knew this by the way he blinked his grey eyes at Harry, slowly batting those long golden lashes. "I don't want you ever to worry about anything, love," Harry's Bondmate of just two months and three weeks, cumulative, went on, his voice throaty and deep. "I exist on this plane solely to prevent that, my darling."

"Draco!" Harry exclaimed, flushing. He spun away, to hide the stupid way he was reacting to a bunch of flowery words. "You ridiculous prat! Cut it out!"

Draco dropped his chosen broom and sidled closer. "I'm  _not_ , Harry Malfoy," he insisted, "so take that back right this instant. Malfoys are  _never_  ridiculous. Nor prats."

"They are," Harry grinned despite himself. "One only has to look to your father, Draco. Very ridiculous. Silly, even.  _And_  a prat. I quite thought he'd be scarier in person, but he's not."

"Oh, you'll pay for that, Harry," Draco threatened, nimbly avoiding the topic of his father. He slung his forearms over Harry's leather-clad shoulders and wrapped a hand 'round Harry's nape, spinning him 'round and tugging him forward an inch or two, in a highly successful effort to distract Harry from thinking about Draco's father at all. "Definitely, you'll pay for insulting us Malfoys. Insulting  _me_. I swear it, upon my honour."

"Really, Malfoy?" Harry taunted, leaning back as far as he was able and peering up. Draco took advantage of it and stepped forward, edging his long-time opponent back up against the marble wall. There was a gap just large enough to fit the width of a grown man, there between the serried racks of broomsticks. "I don't think so," he bit out, green eyes sparkling. "You've not got it in you to make me pay you—not  _properly_."

"Oh, but I do, Harry." Sharp speculative eyes narrowed on his target, Draco pressed himself closer, his palm cushioning Harry's black silky pate as it was forced back against the wall. "I most definitely have ways of making you pay 'properly'. You can't imagine how many of these spring to mind right this instant, my pretty little ex-plebe."

"Show me, then, Malfoy," Harry urged. He slowly walked the fingers of one hand up Draco's flying jacket, unfastening clasps as he went. He handily ignored the 'ex-plebe' bit, as such jibes were below him, these days, what with continual exposure to ruddy Malfoys. Malfoys used insults the way they used toilet tissue: carelessly and with no real ill intent. Besides, Draco being 'threatening' was far more interesting even than Draco being 'artless'. It was certainly sexier, too. "Or I'll not believe you at all."

"Mmm," Draco murmured, and nibbled slowly and deliberately at Harry's lower lip. "You asked for it, then. Your funeral, Harry."

"Uh-huh," Harry scoffed, blatant disbelief written all over his tilted-up visage. He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "I daresay."

"We start with this, here—just a little taste, to release the venom." Draco dipped his head and latched his mouth onto Harry's neck. He nipped, ever so lightly—teasing.

"Venom?" Harry snapped back, suddenly a bit breathless. He blinked up at his grinning accoster, duly distracted. "What venom?"

"The substance which will serve to relax our chosen prey, Harry," Draco whispered, still nibbling. He lipped his way along Harry's jaw line, leaving it damp. "The poison that'll stop you from fleeing me, your captor. From even considering the possibility of escape."

"Yeah?" Harry was more than willing to learn more about this 'venom'. He groaned, as Draco bit a little harder. Leaving a highly conspicuous lovebite, no doubt.

"Umm-hmm, Harry," Draco nodded. It brought his lips on level with his captive's eyelids, which were drooping with pleasure. Draco licked them, using the very tip of his tongue to trace the fragile folds. It tickled Harry something fierce, amongst other—more sensual—sensations. "And then…"

'Ungh? And…then?" Harry replied, with some difficulty. His hips had rolled forward, seemingly without his volition. He rocked them, back and forth, coaxing Draco's into a steady frottage. "Malfoy?"

"We sink in our fangs, Harry," Draco purred, nuzzling his aristocratically straight beak into Harry's exposed throat, "and we  _bite_." Which he did, burrowing his seeking mouth into the smooth skin under an earlobe. Teeth—sharp and white—left a glistening telltale ring on his partner's flesh. Another lovebite; another bit of proof Harry was Malfoy's property. "Just like this."

"Ah!" Harry moaned, shivering. "Thassss nicccce, Draco." He was so fucking hard, it hurt.

"It is, isn't it? Shall I do it again, Harry?" Draco asked him, his voice soft as a silk tassel, with just a smidge of teasing flutter. He licked the skin he'd so ably marked a deep, dull red. It throbbed in response. Harry didn't answer immediately, his features relaxed in an mindless expression of bliss. Draco blinked at it, not expecting his lover to be quite so overtaken so quickly.

"Harry? Er, Harry… _do_  you want me to bite you? Again, that is?"

"Uhnnn…" Harry managed, dragging his brain forcibly back from the Utopia it'd found, beneath Draco's lips.

Draco opened his mouth wide across Harry's Adam's apple, allowing his jaws to rest lightly on its bulge. He felt an echoing swell in Harry's trousers—and in his own, as he was far from disinterested in proceedings. His hips kept up the insidious rocking.

"Mmm?' he prompted, as his husband had apparently lost the page, and also possibly the entire novel.

"Erm—yes?" Harry started slightly for a second time and then alertly cocked his head, raising his chin high to provide his fond seducer greater access. "Please do?"

Harry was treated to the Malfoy Look of Triumph. Draco's steely eyes narrowed and he smiled viciously, lips curling cruelly up at the corners. He pounced, with a cry of self-satisfied pleasure.

Draco sucked, so suddenly and masterfully Harry gulped for air as his trachea was relentlessly squeezed. Draco's lips were like the coils of the boa constrictor Harry had conversed with ever so long ago: slippery and relentless, and far stronger than one would ever imagine such a elegant form might be.

"Ungh!" Harry gasped. "Dra—!" The last syllable was lost as Draco's mouth slipped, grazing down Harry's throat, to come to rest in the hollow of his clavicle. He licked at the dip of skin curiously and then drew back, leaving a shaken, highly aroused Potter in his wake.

"We won't manage to have that run you wanted, Harry—if I continue," Draco warned, eyes glittering. He was panting, just like Harry was, and the bulge of his dick against Harry's own straining cock was the very centre of Harry's world at that precise moment. "That alright, love?"

"Yessss."

Harry's knees wobbled beneath him in delayed reaction. His trousers bulged ominously. Draco followed up the marvelous pressure with another nip and long, drawn-out suckle, and Harry could feel his reddened skin flushed and pulsing, wet with transferred saliva. He quivered, his cock pressed snug against his husband's as Draco budged their thighs tight together.

"Don't care 'bout that, much, no," he managed, faintly, forcing air from his tortured lungs. "Can fly later—much later. Oh, Draco!"

"Hmmm, Harry?" Draco drew back yet again, lifting his hips away from Harry's; cool air rushed between them, heightening sensation across damp skin. "You won't fight the inevitable? You  _want_  to give in—that much so?"

"Hmm? What—what're you saying now, prat?"

Harry rallied slightly at that grossly insulting insinuation, but only momentarily. He opened his drowsy eyes and regarded the intent grey ones an inch or so away with a wash of pure curiosity. Draco shrugged at him, blinking in that so-innocent way he had—the one that fooled no one, but especially not Harry.

"By 'giving in', you mean what, exactly?" Harry asked, pulling himself more firmly together. "Are you thinking I'm planning on apologizing to you, Draco? Because you'd be mistaken, prat.  _Ridiculous_ Malfoy prat."

A brow quirked at him, quizzically. Draco smiled ruefully, a faint furtive curl of his wet lips. This was a quandary, he thought. A miniscule part of him was in the midst of actively despising himself, for even contemplating being so...so imminently soppy and fond. He was, indeed, a ridiculous prat.

He wasn't the sort, normally, to admit to these gentler emotions of his, much preferring to actively demonstrate to Harry precisely what Harry meant to him. And words—well, they'd used so many words against each other, in the past and even now, and words were themselves so easily misinterpreted. They didn't cut the mustard, not when it was life or death, nor even when it was simply  _living_. But still…words had their uses and perhaps it was a trust thing, as well.

Draco knew he was rather pants at that, still. Left him terribly vulnerable, it did, trusting Potter. But then again, Harry might just really want him to come straight out and blurt things, now and again.

"To my need for you, Harry. My constant, unceasing  _need_."

Draco groaned in defeat, flushing painfully, and in a flash, had the bones of his pelvis flush up against his partner's, grinding him back against the wall. His  _need_ —fully erect and quite painful in its ample state of readiness—was easily discernable, even by an oblivious sort of bloke, such as Potter.

"What else would I be referring to, numbskull?" he asked rhetorically, and gathered Harry closer. Like a crutch...or a shield. "My damnably insatiable craving for  _you_ , Harry, my very own Mister Malfoy—all hours, day or night. Doesn't seem to ever cease, that," Draco admitted shyly, returning to bite at Harry's full lower lip ever so gently, the nip was barely palpable, "and I don't ever wish it to, you follow?"

"I…follow."

Harry sighed his satisfaction with Draco's huge leap into this, the verboten territory of Twee, Emotional, Male Transparency, and released the handle of his Firebolt forthwith, as he'd absolutely no need of it at the moment. Squeezed his husband hard in return as it clattered to the tile to join its fellow, till they were so tightly entwined, they were practically melded of one fabric. And the slow, steady frotting they'd had going earlier resumed without so much as a 'Go!' from either of them, a tango of wicked-good sensation, centred squarely in the swollen shafts behind their flies.

"Oh, yeah," Harry admitted, with not a hint of any regret or hesitance. "I give, Draco. You win. Do whatever. Whenever— _now_. Now is very good. Not a prat, really. Or ridiculous. Or, if you are, I love it."

"That's better, Harry," Draco murmured, and slid a hand between them, fumbling. "I do like it when you're agreeable with my wishes. And I  _am_  a prat, and even ridiculous, but that's alright, sometimes, too."

Buttons popped and zippers were undone with indecent haste, until Draco grew too impatient and murmured the phrase to Vanish both pairs of fitted flying trousers and imported dragonhide boots altogether—some words were always welcome, of course, being exceptionally useful.

"Even better, that," he purred in satisfaction over their shared nudity. "Put your leg up 'round my waist, Harry, alright?"

"Mmm, Draco," Harry complied eagerly, squirming. "Do it."

He anchored himself to Draco's back and hips like a limpet and shunted forward, spine curved, more than ready and willing as his spouse shoved him higher. " _Do_  it."

"No lube, love?"

Harry's chest was magically bared to roving hands with yet another convenient word, and where those fingers travelled, as Harry had learnt from sweet experience, Draco's mouth often followed.

"You certain you want it dry? I'll hurt you," Draco murmured softly, grazing across skin and hair and skin, again.

"I'm already stretched, you idiot," Harry muttered, and tugged at a hank of his lover's fine hair impatiently. "It's not even been a full hour since the last shag, remember? Just do it, silly prat—stop delaying!"

Despite his urging, the feeling of absolute insane  _hurry_  was gone. They'd all the time in the world stretched before them, to savour. To enjoy.

"Oh, I don't know, Harry," Draco's teeth gleamed when he glanced up from Harry's left nipple, now very pink and pouting. "I might just want you a tad more incoherent, first," he said, grinding his naked cock against Harry's bobbing one and eying the remaining nipple with evil intent. "Begging, even. You were begging earlier," he mused thoughtfully, hesitating. "I liked it."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," Harry gritted, suddenly remembering that whilst they had all the time ever required, life would still go on about them, and that meant chores—housecleaning, to be exact. The Manor possessed a legion of house elves because it required almost constant upkeep. "Dipsy and Meeble and that little elf—what's her name? They'll be popping up any moment now, asking if they can be of service. Or your Mum, Draco—I glimpsed her in the Rose Garden earlier—they've returned from the City already, your bloody parents. Just do it—and be quick about it!"

"Oh, alright, then." Draco huffed and made much of grasping his dick and pointing it exactly dead-centre at his spouse's jouncing bottom. "If you insist, greedyboots."

"I insi-!" Harry began, as the bulbous tip of Draco's cock teased him unmercifully, prodding. "Ssssst! Oooh, Draco, that's niiice!"

"Mmm-hmm," Draco murmured, mouth open against Harry's throat, where it always came to rest at times like this. "Mmm, yes, love," he added, with a jerky in-out motion of his straining lower body starting them off down the now extremely familiar path towards connubial satisfaction. "Very nice." He inched into Harry's spectacular arse with a tiny indrawn breath and stuck his blushing face in Harry's hair. "Indeed. Love you so much, Harry. Always, always, always I love you."

"Love  _you_ ," Harry muttered in return, only just barely audibly, as he'd his nose jabbed into his husband's armpit. He burrowed it deeper when Draco eased into a smooth, well-oiled glide and allowed his appropriate sphincter muscles to go lax and easy, accepting. Draco's cock ramped up to piston speed quickly, slotting in with precision at all the proper angles, and the tingly, hair-raising sensation within Harry's groin built deliciously. He moaned ever so softly, to ensure his lover realized just how well he was doing with this form of revenge—what with the venom and all relaxing him and leaving him helpless. If Nagini'd ever done anything like this, Harry would've been a goner for sure, he was certain. Ah— _no_. On second thought, not really. It seemed to require a Malfoy to truly dismantle his higher mental functions at will.

It— _he_ —required Draco, to be exact. That was it. Harry, carried away, said exactly that. Aloud and fervently.

"Harry—oh, gawds, Harry!" Draco moaned in reply, feeling very grateful for that knowledge, absorbed through sheer osmosis. He jerked his cock back and forth faster—deeper—harder. A classic shag, this: at full throttle, with his partner enthusiastically returning every thrust with a instinctual squeeze. Now would finally spill out all that nonsense which always escaped him whenever they shagged—the  _really_ soppy rot about not being able to exist without a certain dark-haired Wizard in his life; a precious four-eyed speccy git who was literally everything to him, an irreplaceable prat who meant all the world and more to a specific well-bred blond bastard, ridiculous or not. And Harry would no doubt gasp out something similar, till all they could manage say at the end of it, either of them, would be each other's names, over and over.

"Harry….ah! Harry!"

"Dra—co…Gah!"

"Ngh!"

Merlin! But it had already begun, the incoherent bit.

Behind the curved arch of Draco's bent back, the door to the Malfoy's opulent broom shed swung open on well-oiled hinges. Nary a creak disturbed the sound of well-muscled and firm male flesh, slapping moist and fast, or shared breaths and sloppy snogging.

A pale head limned with several quite brilliant white strands poked in and cautious grey eyes peered about, narrowed to slits against the white tiled brilliance of the sconce-lit walls. It was brighter outside, what with all the fabulous sunshine abounding, but the contrast between  _in_  and  _out_  was literally dazzling. The elder set of grey eyes watered instantly and then started blinking rapidly, adjusting.

"Draco! Are you here, son? Draco?" Lucius called tentatively into the cavernous Broom Shed, his voice setting up a faint echo. "Have you, by any chance, seen your moth— **ARRGGHH**! Bloody Salazar! My frigging  _ **eyes**_!"


	10. Final Installment (Yada, Yada, Yolo!)

The 20 standard answers on a Magic 8-Ball are:

● As I see it, yes

● It is certain

● It is decidedly so

● Most likely

● Outlook good

● Signs point to yes

● Without a doubt

● Yes

● Yes - definitely

● You may rely on it

● Reply hazy, try again

● Ask again later

● Better not tell you now

● Cannot predict now

● Concentrate and ask again

● Don't count on it

● My reply is no

● My sources say no

● Outlook not so good

● Very doubtful

10 of the possible answers are affirmative (●), 5 are negative (●), and 5 are maybe (●). Using the Coupon collector's problem in probability theory, it can be shown that it takes an average of 72 questions of the Magic Eight Ball for all 20 of its answers to appear at least once.

* * *

"Darling."

Narcissa was doing that annoying thing she'd begun doing the minute she'd received her birthday gift from the boys: rolling it about in her fingers and across the crease of her soft palm, so the milky pearl patina was admirably displayed side-by-side with her mauve manicure. The small triangular window flashed mockingly at Lucius and he controlled a chagrinned grimace with effort.

"I've been thinking…" she added, in a musing sort of way. "Darling…"

"Yes, dear one?" He rustled his paper, and peeped at her, and not without envy. Why should the boys favour Cissy so when it was clear all Lucius desired was a Ball of his own?

Both the 'boys'—and Lucius used that term very lightly, as they were decidedly in their mid-twenties, gainfully employed and flaunting unmistakably active sexual lives- _with_  each other!—popped their respective heads up from behind their morning papers. Draco, his only son, heir and the apple pip of his quite-fond eye—after his sweet Narcissa, of course—twitched a pale brow at Lucius inquiringly. Potter, who was technically a Malfoy now, yes, but still very irksome nonetheless, directed a fond gaze toward his relatively recent mother-in-law.

"Hmm?" he murmured affectionately, clingy sop that he was. Lucius sneered lightly; by all evidence, Potter adored having a maternal figure about. But then the git was painfully obvious as to whom he cared for and whom he did not. Certainly he clung to Lucius's heir like a bloody limpet, the baby. "What's that, Narcissa?"

"Well, it's been a month or more, now, darling," she replied, making eyes at her husband, and rolled the damned Ball between her knuckles tauntingly, "and we've caught up with everyone who matters in the slightest. Too, I'm quite satisfied with the way in which you, Harry, and you, son," and here she nodded at them both approvingly, "are managing the Manor despite all this folderol with being Aurors, so…perhaps, just perhaps, it's time."

"Time?" Draco's one eyebrow climbed ever higher. Potter looked to be rapt.

"Time for what, dear heart?" Lucius knew, naturally, exactly where she was going with this delicately rambling speech of 'time'. One didn't live with Narcissa Malfoy for nigh on twenty-five years and not know when she'd reached an executive decision. And know as well that he had just about as much chance of diverting her from her eventual goal as an aged baobab tree did of diverting a rampaging erumphant on the torrid plain. Less, perhaps. "Of what do you speak of, exactly?"

Both boys obligingly lowered their papers, eyes on Narcissa. Lucius discarded his neatly, folded his hands before his empty teacup, staunchly bracing himself. His leash—he could sense this—was about to be shortened drastically.

Narcissa cleared her throat in a lady-like cough.

"Well. I've had a note from your cousin Leonié, Lucius, dear. She Owls me to say they're missing us sorely at the Spa in St. Tropez," she replied, tiny frown dissolving into a sly sidewise smile. "Something about the usual soirees being a bit of a drag, this season, and the debutantes beyond awful. It's a—well, as the boys would say, dear, it's a total drag there without us."

"Oh, really?" Lucius snorted. "You don't say?"

"And too," his wife apparently had more than one string on her bow readied, "there's the that pesky old Guillaume of yours at the vineyard, Lu, dearest. He's Owling daily, now—have you noticed? Wants you there to dig the poor old soul out of whatever mess it is he's run them into this time. A hitch with a distributer, I think? In any event, he's in dire need of your sage advice and acumen…darling." She nodded her silent son, who was listening intently, his pale gaze swiveling from one parent to the other. "Surely, darling, Draco has mentioned the matter? Or Harry?"

She turned her lovely eyes fully upon her two children—one gotten purely by blood and one by act of abruptly sudden marriage. Both shook their respective heads to the negative, and both were decidedly being very butter-wouldn't-melt about it.

Lucius's eyes narrowed: something fishy here, he just knew it.

Narcissa smiled sweetly.

"Nope, not yet," allowed Harry. "Not a peep, sorry. Er…who's this Guillaume again, Narcissa? Haven't heard of  _him_."

"Uh-uh," Draco vouchsafed, "not a word was sent to  _me_ , Mum—sorry!" And dived right back into the Travel section. "Can't help you."

Evidently satisfied as to her son's lack of knowledge, Cissy Malfoy swung her brilliantly expectant gaze her husband's way, all the while twiddling with that damned miniature Eight Ball.

"Lu, dear?"

It was the last straw, really.

" _Don't_  call me that—haven't I said not to  _ever_  call me by that horrid nickname, Cissy—and  _what_? They  _have_? What's this, Cissy? _I_  wasn't Owled about that!" Lucius sat up straight and shoved his offensive cup away, gathering up the crumpled pages of his paper with a flurry, clenching them tightly into what were rapidly becoming fists of rage. "Draco? Explain at once! The Provence estate is  _your_  entailment; why are you not right on top of this situation? This is serious! We can't have foul-ups at the start of fiscal year—whatever goes on here?"

"Oh, no…Father," Potter piped up, his green eyes bloody huge and elf-like in his passably handsome face, "that's me, I'm afraid. Draco asked me to handle that bit, that and t'other one, the Champagne estate—and then the Dardennes one, too. I was s'posed to make arrangements for storage—wasn't it storage, love?" he stopped to glance over at his new spouse for a moment; Lucius's heir nodded ever so slightly. "But yes, Narcissa's right, there's a foul-up somewhere along the line—and I  _was_  just planning on consulting with you, sir. Really, I  _was_. Right straight after breakfast."

"Wait, what?" Lucius roared, bewildered. "You? You're the one-?"

"But you see," Potter babbled gaily on, undeterred by Lucius's reddening cheeks, "as  _I_ understand it—that man Gilly or Gimpy or whatever can't seem to manage a simple Translation Charm, can he?. I mean to say, there's some sort of tariff involved he neglected—or maybe it's a must infestation on the grapes, or something like…or it could be that that Romanian fellow, the skeevy one you've said more than once you didn't trust, sir, any farther than you could fling him."

"What skeevy Romanian fellow?" Lucius demanded, drawn in despite himself. He leant across the table, just barely restraining himself from grasping the Potter pup by the collar and shaking some sense out of him. "D'you mean Cojocaru, Potter? Speak up, son!"

Potter nodded eagerly, his green eyes bright behind his lenses.

"Oh, yessir—just let me finish."

Lucius waved him on fretfully, sneaking a glance at his milquetoast heir, still hiding behind the Prophet's Travelogue Section.

"Go on, boy!" he snapped.

"Uh-huh…well, it's like this, from what I can pick out from the Owl Henri sent over—you know Henri, sir? He's the one with the pegleg?"

"Of course I know Henri, boy—get on with it!"

"'Kay. The chap your boy Guillaume contracted our enterprise with has ducked out altogether for some unknown reason, but what it comes down to is we've a failure in the supply side, somewhere, and now Narcissa here is telling us your man's gone quite spastic over it. I think—this is just off the top of my head, mind—"

Lucius thumped the table with a fist and opened his mouth, ready to emit a scathing diatribe about Potter who never seemed to manage to get the actual point of the matter, but the little git his son had bedded ably forestalled him.

"There's something like three thousand, two hundred and twenty one cases backlogged of just the Brut, all sitting in the Nantes warehouse facility," Potter related blithely, "and your man Guillaume cannot seem to ship them. And neither can I, sir. Seems someone will have to Portkey over and attend to it personally. Sorry."

"There, dearest," Narcissa nodded approvingly. "Now you know. You're needed, my love. And France is pleasant this time of year…"

Her tiny white Ball twirled smugly.  **Without a doubt**.

"What! What-what- _what_! Potter! How could you?" Lucius howled, the morning's headlines scattering as he flung his section of the Goblin Times away altogether. "One little thing—just the one little thing! One little item I ask of the two of you—you, you twats!" He swallowed, wincing under his wife's sudden glare. "Ah—sorry—boys, then. You boys. I ask that you manage a transaction an elf could do blindfolded! A babe could do it! A Muggleborn babe, Potter! And you—and you!"

"Now, darling," Cissy shook her head at him. The Ball flashed a new message:  **Outlook not so good.**

Lucius ceased speaking, well aware he was about to gabble incoherently, and simply stared at his son-in-law, appalled. More so than usual; appalled, that is. He was routinely appalled to simply be in possession of such as thing as a  _son-in-law_ ,  _and_ a Pottery one at that! So!

This—this was worse; a thousand times worse! This was Galleons wasted and good wine lying about in caskets, undrunk by the paying masses!

"Ngh!"

"Oh…but Father," Draco finally chimed in, a proud and somewhat sappy, stupid grin gracing his undeniably sharp-and-dreadfully keen Malfoy features. "Harry here can handle it, I'm sure. You're not to worry your head over this. He's not bad at sorting out these little…issues. Why, when we had that, er, mishap with the Naugahyde people—in Hong Kong, you remember?—he just popped straight over and set them to rights." He leant forward confidingly across the intervening platters of baked goods and fruit cup, and fondly patted his husband of two-plus months upon the wrist. "Two shakes of the Elder Wand, what, Harry? Did the trick, I'd say." Proud and apparently not at all averse to showing it, Draco lounged back into his chair, raising one of those damned pale eyebrows at his own father. "Really, Father. Quite the little go-getter, our Harry. Aren't you, darling? Helps, too, to have that wicked rep of yours, love. Clout, my sweet. Hard to fuck around with the Saviour, yeah?"

Cissy—Lucius's Cissy—grinned gleefully, nodding her agreement.  **You may rely on it** , her Ball pointed out, obdurately round in the face of all this kerfuffle. Lucius sputtered.

"Geh-gah-nrrgh!"

"Oh stop, you git!" Potter flushed and smacked Draco's arm, sloshing his tea. "You make too much of it. You're embarrassing me."

"Oh, Harry…"

Draco simpered at him. No—he practically cooed! Lucius's entirely too-overindulgent son didn't lift a finger in retaliation! Annoying sop!

They bent dangerously close to one another, under Narcissa's fond eye. Lucius brought himself up short—enough was surely enough!

"Urk! Ugh! Both of you—stop this instant! I'll not have snogging like animals over the fruit cup!"

"Hmm," Narcissa nodded, "that he is."

"What, dear?" Startled, Lucius swiveled his popped eyes to stare at his wife. His calm, composed wife, who was still twiddling her damned Eight Ball about. She was perusing a much-wrinkled Owl with an air of bland absorption.

"Guillaume, dear one. Set in his ways, that one; very unbendy. Not at all surprised this happened, really, what with his little…quirks. But, Lucius, darling, perhaps a personal touch  _is_  required? Yours, even? You know how Guillaume is this time of year. Fussy. Frantic. Needs some careful handling and poor Henri can't do a thing with him—really, it's the sort of situation you're best at, darling. Firm, but caring. Is that not correct, Ball? Isn't my husband a trooper at achieving resolutions to sticky wickets?

The pearlescent Ball between her fingers shimmied—Lucius could swear it had rolled its eyeballs, 'cept that it had none—and came up with a message in its window. He couldn't stop the instant swell of gratitude and pride filling his chest cavity, though—damned nice to know someone believed him necessary!

**It is decidedly so**. The Ball seemed huffy about it, all the same; Lucius could relate.  _He_  felt huffy. And remarkably out of the loop. The Champagne estate was his personal baby, as it were, from when he'd been his Father's heir-apparent, and was the one vineyard he'd thrown the majority of his precious time and effort into, since he and Cissy had first removed to France, after the…Incident.

**Yes**. This time the Ball seemed sure. Lucius swallowed down understandable ire. If he'd his own Ball, he could've anticipated this—solved the freight issue before Potter ever mucked with it.

"Well!" he exploded, "it would be damned spiffing if  _someone_  would mention these things—to  _me_! I  _am_ the Head of the Family! And Potter, you pusillanimous little twat, why didn't you come to me immediately?"

"Father," Draco drawled, scowling, "Language! And it's 'Malfoy' now. Or  _Harry_ , if you so inclined."

Potter shrugged, apparently undisturbed.

"Oh, but, sir, you were enjoying your visit with us so much, and then you're on holiday, aren't you? Aurors has been damnably demanding of late, what with time off for our honeymoon and making up for it-and besides, sir. I have to accustom myself to this sort of thing, or so Draco tells me. He can't run everything. We've our other ventures to pay mind to, as well. The Balls, f'rinstance. They're doing very well with the teen Witch market."

"Bugger the Balls!" Lucius howled, jabbing an accusing finger at Potter's smarmy face. "The Champagne property isn't  _his_ to run, Potter—it's mine! No one has ever given it over to you, you little usurper!"

"Malfoy, Father. It's Harry Malfoy. Don't forget, now," Draco—that adamantine little prick delighted in pointing out. Lucius glared at him furiously, jaw dropping. "And yes, Father. You gave them all over to me just last year—nice and tight and legal-like, thanking you-and I am now equally legally wedded, and that would be to Harry here, and thus, you see—by law of co-jointure, Harry's the one minding-"

Insult, to Lucius's mind, had been heaped upon injury and then some. "This is absolutely appalling," he stated righteously. His wife's Ball echoed his sentiments:  **It is certain**. " _I_  have personally taken an interest in the production at Champagne these last twenty-odd years, Pot- _Mal_ —oh, very well, Cissy! Harry, then— _Harry_!"

He was in turn subjected to a beady-eyed glower from his lady wife, all for a simple slip-up over the damnable ingrate's surname. Malfoy, indeed! When was a Potter ever a Malfoy? Inconceivable! But, be that as it may, the little git his son was regularly boinking in a fully—incontestably-legal sense was simply  _looking_  at him, all wide green eyes and pseudo-innocence. As was his proper son, with far less innocence of any sort glinting in those grey orbs of his!

"Just so, Father. 'Harry'. You'll manage it in time, I'm sure."

Cissy nodded. "Yes, dear. We've faith in you…don't we, Harry?"

"Ma'am," the git smiled like a bloody Slytherin. "Yes, ma'am, thank you."

"Bollocks! Harry—damn it, Harry, let me finish, will you? As I was saying, Gillaume is delicate, I admit," Lucius ground out, "and he has his little ways, true enough, but the man's an excellent overseer, not to mention  _the_  authority on grafting, so— _so_ -!"

"So, what, Father?" Lucius's horrid gasper of an ungrateful heir wanted to know. "You're retired, aren't you? You've said—more,  _Mother_  said. Wouldn't be on hols here otherwise. Be at the estate, handling poor old delicate Guillaume. Right?"

"I am  _not_!" Lucius roared, horrified, and rose abruptly to his feet, stomping a slippered foot. "Retired! I am quite active, you pissant, puerile twit of a boy, and don't you forget it! A Malfoy  _never_ retires—we die in harness! We are worker bees, Draco— _worker bees_!"

Potter—the snarky little twat—snorted happily and helplessly, falling into a series of muffled giggles over the tray of cinnamon-apple pastries. Even Draco, who was normally quite apt at listening to his honoured father with a completely straight face and at very least the polite  _guise_  of rapt attention, couldn't help but crack a wavering half-smile. Only Cissy—dear,  _dear_ Cissy, Lucius's beloved and only soulmate—remained grave in the face of this startling avowal. She gazed at him quite seriously, still fiddling with her Ball.

"Hmm," she hummed. "Perhaps I should consult my Ball, Lu? Would that help?"

**You may rely on it**. The miniature Ball rolled its white triangle playfully up at the stricken Head of Malfoy, winking.

_Ah_!

"No! No, darling— _I_  will!"

That—why, that was brilliant! Lucius gave himself a mental pat, and reached out a hand to snatch it. He was a sodding  _genius_!

" _I'll_  just use this, shall I?" he demanded, with a glare round the breakfast table. "Since these puny little Muggle Orbs are so horribly prescient? Why not consult it directly, I ask you? Ball!" he commanded, imperiously. "Ball, hup!  _I_  want you! Is there _really_  a problem with the Romanian distributor? Is old Gillaume off his nut? Tell me at once!"

"Darling!" Narcissa protested. "I really don't think…that' not at all how one uses it. Dear. Don't be so..so demanding."

Potter was shaking his uncombed head, looking at Lucius with—was that pity? Pity!

"Sir…um, y'see, there's this little problem. That's one of the newer prototypes," he twittered. "It...well, it—"

Lucius waved him off, aggravated. Draco chuckled from behind the pages of the Travel section, where he'd retreated again, the coward. His grey eyes—so like Lucius's sainted mother's—were dancing.

"Ball! Ball, I  _want_  an answer!" Lucius simply shook it harder, but the white triangular Oracle refused to settle. "Speak to me!"

**Reply hazy, try again**.  **Ask again later**.  **Better not tell you now**. The pearly Ball's triangle was going mad with avoidance tactics.

"Muggling piece of shite!" Lucius growled. He shook it again and Pot—no,  _Malfoy_ , damn his eyes, bobbed his ruffled black head wearily and then had the nerve to heave sigh at him. "It's worthless!"

"Sir—Father—really," Potter tried again. "It isn't, really. That's—well."

Narcissa, too, heaved a great woeful huff and took up her tea cup.

"Oh, Lu. I did try to tell you."

"Father, it  _won't_  work," Draco piped up. "You're not key-coded."

"Wha?  _What_? What's  _that_ mean?" Lucius shrugged off 'key-coding' as being a piece of newfangled Muggleborn nonsense. He took up shaking the little orb with vigour once more. "Ball! I am  _speaking_  to you. Man up, then!"

**Cannot predict now**. The Ball was adamant.  **Concentrate and ask again**. It advised cheerily—but in a stony, you-can't -convince-me-to-talk manner.  **Don't count on it**. It followed up insouciantly and then the blue triangular window went the darkest of indigo shades and the Muggle messaging device disappeared altogether into its depths.

Lucius stared at it, aghast.

"Damned thing's  _defective_ , Cissy!" he announced. "What the bloody buggering  _fu_ —ahem!"

"Hardly," the Potter cub murmured slyly to his spouse. "User head-space error, more like."

"Harry!" Draco snorted, and stuck an elbow across the two inches—barely—that separated the two young whippersnappers, "stifle! Now's  _not_ the time. Can't you see Father's busy having a conniption?"

"Darling," Narcissa extended a waiting palm, patiently, "do return my birthday present to me, at once. It won't work for you, dear. The boys have spelt it  _my_ magical signature, not yours."

"Eh?" Lucius gaped. The pretty little Ball hung precariously in his limp grasp. "No! No, really? You can do that?" It was a tad smaller than the standard black ones and much…more elegant, he admitted. If he possessed one, he's like his to be in a dove grey shade, but—

"They've gone and done what, now?" he asked of his wife, finally returning the annoyingly unhelpful Muggle magick device. "'Key-carding', you say? What in Salazar's Skivvies is  _that_?"

"It's a security device, Father," his son-and-heir grinned at him. He patted his horrid little Muggleborn true love on the crown of his ridiculous mop proudly, just to make the point. "Harry here thought of it. It's our latest improvement—Ball security. Just like a locking device on the Muggle mobiles, you know. Prevents someone lifting it; asking it questions when they've no right."

"No right?" Lucius faltered. He sat, with a thump, and his wife calmly divested him of her squirrelly present. "How d'you mean, boy—'no right'? That's m'wife! That's m'wife's Ball—certainly  _I_  have the right!"

Narcissa tilted her head at him, slitting those pretty eyes of hers dangerously.

"Thank you, darling, yes. There, there, little Ball. I'm back with you and everything's just fine, isn't it?" she cooed at her devilishly annoying Muggle magical item and actually petted it, before directing a second gimlet-eyed gaze at her husband. "Next time, dear one," she said, through her teeth, "ask first before you simply grab. It's only courtesy, Lucius."

"Er—er, well," Lucius was flabbergasted. Finally—finally—he had access to one of those horrid little Muggle magical Balls, after scouring every single toy store in London and failing, and finally— _finally_ —he thought to make use of his family connections (Cissy was very fond of him and he, her, even after all these years together; of course she would let him have use of the thing!) and, erm…borrow it.  _Borrow_ , only. Occasionally. Now and again. Without permission.

Because neither of the ungrateful, unrepentant little whelps had seen fit to provide him one of his  _own_ , naturally. Not even though he was Malfoy Head of House and their Father (even— _ick!—_ Potter's, by law—oh, Merlin help him!) and a competent businessman ( _not retired_!) in his own right. He'd need of such a Ball of his own. A man needed every advantage, did they not? And surely even his spoilt son could see that—surely?

"Sorry, then," he huffed. "I see I've made a grievous error, darling," he went on stiffly, "trespassing. But how was  _I_  to know that little pri—Pot—er,  _Harry_  here had come up with a security feature for what amounts to nothing more than a child's plaything? That's—that's ridiculous! Entirely too, too much! Preposterous! It'll never sell!"

"Oh, well, sir," the annoying Potter at his breakfast table grinned at him, "that's because we've had some reports of misuse on the part of Wizarding parents—even outright theft, sad to say."

"Indeed?" Lucius inquired frostily. "Whatever do you refer to, Po—Harry?"

"Um, it's like this, Father," Draco, ever the unnecessarily helpful one in a pinch, opened his prattling maw.  _He'd_  done nothing useful, his own blood cub, or so Lucius decided, this whole time, but sit back and watch his sire be roundly humiliated. Now he'd the gall to jump in and explain matters? Hah!

Lucius snorted viciously. "Like  _what_ , Draco? Speak up, boy!"

"Several of the Wizarding parents—and grandparents, too, from what _we_  hear—have rather...rather helped themselves to their children's possessions. For, er, purposes of the 'Change, don't you know, and um, the pro-Quidditch matches. Crup races—the Muggle Lotto; all that sort of thing. Laying wagers, I daresay, but—bad for business, isn't it? In the long run. Throws a dreadful spanner in the works, everyone up and suddenly thinking they're competent Seers. I hear tell the elder Goyles lost a packet just the other week, investing in raw Nauga. Erroneously. That particular Thestral is dead and gone. No one invests in Nauga now."

"Um, right, what Draco says, sir, is gods' honest truth—and of course  _we_  catch the blame of it," Harry spoke up, hastily swallowing the half-crumpet he'd shoved into his plebian mouth and had been chewing methodically all the while his spouse went on about petty thievery. His green eyes twinkled merrily, though, and Lucius found that quite infuriating. He didn't care to be twinkled at by his own son-in-law. "Being the manufacturers and sole distributors, y'see? Product liability and all that guff, don't you know. 'Course, we've never once claimed the Balls were one hundred percent accurate—and really, sir, how could they be? Some of those predictions are little on the cagey side, to my mind. I don't know that I'd simply toss away good Galleons on what a Muggle toy advised me to purchase high—and then sell low. That's sodding ridiculous."

"Of course not, love," Draco nodded. "So right you are."

"Draco…love."

They smiled mistily at each other, and Lucius swallowed back rising bile. "Get on with it, Harry," he gritted. His wife sent him the pleasance of a kindly glance for using 'Harry', though. Buoyed up a bit, Lucius essayed a question that had been jiggling about in the rear of his wily brain for ages.

"Still and all, Po-Harry, I've watched you use yours for exactly that purpose, son, so you can't convince me there's nothing to them," he protested, still a shade mottled about the jowls with temper. "Not buying it!"

"But they  _are_  most helpful, darling," Cissy smiled, "and charming, too, of course. Quite the fashion accessory. Why, the Parkinson chit—she has one in a marvelous shade of brilliant pink; carries it with her everywhere. And I really only use mine to order lunch, you know. And for the Lotto-naturally. And, ah, other sorts of tickets I might wish to purchase."

"You…you  _do_?" Lucius  _didn't_  know. "Really, the Muggle  _Lotto_ , darling? But we've more than enough Funds."

He was busily processing what he'd not been able to previously, what with the blood rushing through his poor throbbing temples like that. But the trials of Guillaume were all but forgotten in the face of this revelation.

His jaw dropped as it all sank in. The Goyles had made a poor investment? They'd lost actual money? That tightfisted prick, Gregors Goyle, was possibly at point-non-plus? And he'd not heard a whisper or a peep of it, before now. Not even at the Club, in the Smoking Lounge! He goggled, and kept his attention on his lovely wife only with great effort.

"What do you mean—to order luncheon, beloved?" he faltered. "And what sort of tickets, did you say? Theatre?"

"To ascertain if the seafood's fresh, or if the chef's as excellent as he's made out to be, my love," Cissy smiled, ducking the question of mysterious tickets altogether. "You know how some of these little cafes like to brag on over the quality their provisions, don't you? I wouldn't want to be consuming a sole that's days off the ship, would I? Indigestion, love!"

Lucius understood indigestion; it had direct correlation with his overlong visit to the shores of his old home, England. In fact, it seemed that from the moment he'd set foot back on the white sands of Dover—metaphorically, of course; they'd actually Apparated straight to the Manor's foyer—he'd been plagued with it.

This lead to some serious—blindingly rapid—cogitation on Lucius's part.

First off, Draco had bedded—and wedded!—a Potter.  _The_  Potter. The arse! And then he and Cissa could hardly manage to make themselves at home in their own home what with falling every second step over his son and that blasted runt of an interloper, snogging and shagging, as if there were no tomorrow! Here, there and everywhere—even in the broom shed! On the damned table before him, actually, on one memorable morning when he'd surfaced early for tea, unable to sleep for wanting a Ball of his own—and hadn't  _that_  been a bleeding shock to the poor house elves. They'd been valiantly attempting to set out a modest repast on Great-Great Aunt Hesper's antique sideboard, the sad things, and then to be greeted by  _in flagrante delicto_  by none other than the Heir and his Pottery whor— _husband_?

And to Lucius, too, naturally. He'd been appalled (there was that word again; so exactly right to describe his perpetual state, these days). The Manor—and the long-suffering help—hadn't seen shagging to this degree of spontaneity since the early days of his union with Cissy. No doubt the elves were shell-shocked and gobsmacked, just as _he_  was—constantly. Not to mention the boys were bloody inventive.  _He'd_  certainly never thought to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh smack in the middle of the billiards green!

The swimming pool.

The scullery.

The Labyrinth.

(Lucius's headache bloomed righteously). The Great Lawn, on a blanket; the roof of the South Wing, stuck fast by magic on the perilous slope of slippery tile; the Library, the Floo Parlour, the—the list went on, in a nauseatingly lengthy way.

_Or_  bent over a marble balustrade, right smack in the middle of the Elevated Walk! Lucius had seen Potter's—Harry's— _his_  son-in-law's raw arse! (Appalling!)  _Or_ —and this truly got his goat—in the Main Dungeon foyer, right before the display of medieval torture devices, which were all safely in unbreakable cases now, but still—how macabre! The glass was still smeared.

"Urk!" He choked on his tea, recalling the elves' expressions as they knowingly avoided that area. Thank Merlin for those mild Confundus Charms Cissy swore by for her migraines or he'd still be recalling every sloppy detail—Potter's arse, blech! And then his very own Draco; all plebian sweaty and with his hair sticking up and his neck bitten red-and-purple up and down, as if Potter were some ruddy vampire, come to suck poor Draco's life away.

Erm, no…more like Draco's willy. And the ingrate liked it, clearly, or there wouldn't be Potter-bum legally plumped at Lucius breakfast table every sodding like clockwork.

"Bah!"

"Father?" Draco looked at him. "Alright there?"

"Pah! No, I am  _not_  'alright', Draco! Nothing is 'alright', now!"

"I'm so sorry to hear that, Father."

"Now, Lu, darling—"

"Sir," Po-Harry snapped his fingers. With a tiny 'pop', a gaily-wrapped green-and-silver paper box appeared upon the tablecloth before Lucius. It was decorated with a huge emerald satin riband bow, sloppily. "Sir, _I_  have actually been noticing…and well, we thought you might be interested in one of your own…we hope you'll like it? Perhaps find a good use for it. As a sort of 'bon voyage' gift, maybe?"

"Ah? What? What, what?"

Lucius gazed down at the box. Examined it with careful scrutiny; the last thing he ever expected from Po-Harry was presents. Gifts? Or mayhap a bribe, was it?

"What's this?" he barked, poking it wit the tines of his winkle fork. "For me?"

"Open it, darling," Cissy purred. She blinked at him, long and slow, looking very pleased with life. "I think you'll find it…appropriate."

"Do, Father," his Heir urged. "Harry chose the colour and fob with you in mind, particularly."

Lucius did just that, but gingerly. Any present form a Potter—even if it had his wayward son's approval—was a suspicious sort of present and might just as well bite him as anything else.

The wrapping fell away under careful swoops of Lucius wand; the top of the box lifted to float off. A hovering elf nabbed it mid-air with a hop, and then DisApparated politely.

"Er? AH? What's this, then?"

'This' was a tiny, wee version of his wife's miniature Muggly Magic Eight Ball, tethered upon the finest grade of gold-linked chains, a dragon clip situated at the other end for easy attachment to waistcoat, no doubt, and glinting up at him ever so sweetly.

**Outlook good**.

The Baby Ball's white triangle was edged in silver; the colour of the water was silvery as well—like liquid mercury. The colour of the Ball itself was a gleaming shiny Slytherin Green, much the same buff-and-finish as the Muggle Porsche-vehicle Draco had tucked away in the Far Garage.

It was a lean little, mean little Foretelling Machine, this wee Ball.

"Lucius Abraxas Malfoy' the tiny engraved inset plate read, opposite sides to the triangles' aperture. "With love from your Sons, Draco & Harry."

"Oh," Lucius's jaw dropped. "Oh," he repeated, after the space of three long beats.

"You like it?" P- _Harry_  asked anxiously. "It took some doing, sir. Y'see, we had to perfect the signature spell—"

"And have the engraving done, Father—"

"And then, darling, the right and proper time to present it you had to be settled," Narcissa chimed in. "And as Gillaume is being his usual sodding old self, dear, we all rather thought now would be—"

"Best, sir," Harry jumped in a second time, nodding his rumpled head furiously, "as a man of business requires every advantage and—"

"The Portkey's ready to convey you privately, as time's of the essence, Father. Good wine sitting about isn't proper, is it?"

"And darling, we're all packed up, our trunks, and I've taken the liberty to Owl dear Leonie that we'd likely drop in to Monte Carlo in a week or so—"

"Plenty of time for you to clear up Guillaume's cock-up, Father," Draco pointed out blandly. "With your years of experience at it."

Lucius firmly quelled the incipient tremble in his fingertips. The tiny Ball was a work of beauty; a top-notch exquisite little gem. He caught it up carefully, his fingertips smoothing 'round the seamless craftsmanship, the artful detailing of the chain—the aperture window—the glossy finish.

"Oh," he remarked, vacantly. "That's rather—I mean to say—um, er?"

"Thank you, darling," his wife grinned at him, looking quite fetching in her daring new frock. "'Thank you, boys' would be the appropriate response here. And also—"

"Also?" Lucius breathed, eyes darting from Draco's pleased smile to P-Harry's warm gaze and back again to the quite, quite attractive features of his beloved helpmate. "Darling?"

"You should perhaps say 'Bon voyage', dear," Cissy replied mendaciously. "The Portkey goes in a twenty minutes."

* * *

 


End file.
